Dynamics of Publication Activity in Russian Sociological Research in Comparison with Trends in Russian and World Science: Results of WoS Bibliometric Analysis for 1993—2020

Abstract

Introduction. The dynamics of Russian sociology research are analyzed for the period of 1993—2020. Methods. The sources of information for the study were three databases on the Web of Science platform: SSCI, SCI-E, and A&HCI. The main method of research was bibliometric analy­sis. Results and Discussion. The percentage of publications in sociology among the social sciences in the world as a whole has gradually declined over the 28-year period: from 4.7 % in 1993 to 2.3 % in 2020. The decline in the same indicator for Russian publications began only in 2008. It should be noted that this indicator is significantly higher than that for the world as a whole: the average percentage of publications in sociol­ogy for the entire period for the world was 3.2 %, for Russia — 16.4 %. The percentage of the world's Open Access publications in sociology is lower than that for the social sciences as a whole, but the growth rate is very high: 1.7 % in 1993 and 34.1 % in 2020. In the case of Rus­sian sociology publications, the Open Access system has only become relatively active in 2013. In 2020, the total percentage of such publi­cations was 7.9 %. Two approaches were used to define the thematic range of sociology research and the level of sociology's connection to other scientific fields. One is based on identifying publications that are common to two of the scientific fields under study, the other involves on identifying publications that were simultaneously cited in different scientific fields. Application of these approaches demonstrated that the second approach, as compared with the first, allowed to reveal much more extensive thematic connections of sociology with other scientific directions. At the same time, the application of rank correlation methods showed that the results obtained using these two different approaches are characterized by a sufficient degree of consistency. Conclusion. The data obtained on the percentage of publications in sociology in national and world science can be used by various state and public structures in the development of scientific policy in the field of social sciences. Data on sociology's connections with other disciplines and their quantitative characteristics can serve as background material for subsequent quali­tative (substantive) analysis of these connections.