Physics research in Israel—A preliminary bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The impact of physics research carried out in Israel on the international literature is assessed from data on publication and citation counts. We have considered in this analysis all papers published from Israel and covered under six of the ten major sections of INSPEC's Physics Abstracts, January-June 1977 (covering condensed matter physics, nuclear and particle physics, atomic and molecular physics and biophysics and physical chemistry) as well as citations to these papers as seen from five annual editions of Science Citation Index, 1977-1981. An analysis of these data permits us to identify: (i) areas of research in which Israel is strong, (ii) highly cited publications, (iii) the distribution of citations over the years, and (iv) how quickly the papers get cited. Israel accounts for less than 1% of the world's physics publications, but undeniably physics done in Israel is an integral part of the mainstream of world physics. Israeli physicists place almost all their work in foreign journals, most of them published from the United States, the Nether lands and the United Kingdom. Many of these journals have a good standing as seen from their high impact factors and immediacy indices. Nearly all papers in our sample have originated in eight institutions, indicating that Israel is free from the common Third World malady of spreading the butter of R&D budget too thinly. Overall, Israeli physics appears to be productive in condensed matter physics, nuclear physics and atomic and molecular physics. However, chemical physics tops the list if one considers both the number of papers published and the cognitive impact these papers have had. Two areas where Israel did not publish much and yet had a few publica tions of high impact are: (i) special theories, interaction models and particle systematics, and (ii) biophysics. Surprisingly for a nation interested in both the military and civilian applications of nuclear energy, Israel's publications in nuclear physics are not as well cited as her publications in many other subfields of physics.