A Comparative Analysis of the Publication Characteristics of Scientific Committees Classified Into the Section of Earth Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Abstract

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the discipline-specific publication characteristics of the Section of Earth Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The analysis focuses in particular on an evaluation of the following aspects: the publication output of individual researchers, co-author characteristics, international visibility, and the citation impact of the publications. The main goals of the analysis are as follows: 1) to justify that, on the basis of the discipline specific publication characteristics, the Section is considered to be inhomogeneous, and 2) to demonstrate that the discipline-specific inhomogeneity is not appropriately acknowledged by the Section’s scientometric requirements that need to be fulfilled to obtain the title ‘DSc’. The results of this analysis point to the clear need for a more accurate re-evaluation of the Section’s scientometric requirements, and at the very least should inspire the leadership of the Section to implement more thorough comparative analysis focusing on the investigation of discipline-specific publication characteristics.