Highly Cited Soviet Papers: An Exploratory Investigation

Abstract

The bibliometric methodology of citation tabulation is applied to the problem of identifying highly cited Soviet scientific areas. A general lack of highly cited Soviet papers is apparent. A further indication of the isolation of Soviet science is the existence of two discrete sets of highly cited Soviet papers, one set published in Soviet journals and cited by Soviet scientists, and a second set published in international journals and cited by non-Soviet scientists. The lists of highly cited papers were reviewed by experts in the field. The consensus was that these lists were indicative of areas of strong Soviet research and that lists of institutions producing these papers included the important Soviet labs.