Abstract
AbstractThis case study analyses data on papers of Croatian authors published in 2017 from four Web of Science Core Collection citation indexes (SCI‐EXP, SSCI, AHCI, and ESCI). The primary dataset (5,176 articles and reviews) was divided into two subsets, the open access (OA) subset (2,964 papers) and non‐OA subset (2,212 papers). We also used the primary dataset to create a subset of papers published in Croatian journals (1,588) as opposed to foreign ones. All were screened for full‐text OA status, journal JCR quartile ranking, journal dominant discipline, and language of publication. OA papers prevailed with 74.4%. Most were available at publisher websites. The percentage of OA papers in Croatian journals was 99.8%. The share of OA papers was the highest in the humanities and social sciences, which also saw the highest share of papers in the Croatian language.Key points Three quarters of papers published by Croatian authors are available in open access (OA). Most papers are in English, even in Croatian journals; Croatian prevailed only in the humanities. Croatian journals are mostly non‐commercial, and many receive government subsidies, provided they are OA; they generally do not charge for article processing. The prevalence of OA over non‐OA papers is the highest in the humanities, followed by the social sciences. Open access publishing might increase international visibility of journals from periphery or semi‐periphery countries.
Highlights
The countries of the European Union (EU) produce one quarter of the world's scientific papers (Noorden & Butler, 2019), and, according to the European Commission (EC), 40.4% of them were freely accessible in 2017 (European Commission, 2020)
We focused on OA papers, their disciplinary and quartile distributions, and the characteristics of Croatian OA journal publishing
Our search of the four Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) citation indexes resulted in 5,176 papers with at least one Croatian affiliation
Summary
The countries of the European Union (EU) produce one quarter of the world's scientific papers (Noorden & Butler, 2019), and, according to the European Commission (EC), 40.4% of them were freely accessible in 2017 (European Commission, 2020). The policies should be clear and detailed in national action plans about "dissemination of and open access to scientific publications resulting from publicly funded research." Between 2009 and 2018, Croatia had 50.8% OA papers and ranked third among the top European countries in this respect. Croatia and the United Kingdom were the leading EU countries in the number of open-access papers (European Commission, 2020). Another large-scale study yielded similar results (Archambault et al, 2013). According to its development indicators, Croatia belongs to the group of semi-peripheral countries (Sorinel, 2010). Croatia is still going through transitional changes in almost all of its economic, educational, social, and political life
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