Scientific Research Publications in Medical Universities of Russian Federation. A 24-Year Perspective

The article is focused on the dynamics of publication activity of medical universities in Russian Federation over the period of 1996–2019. Based on the number of publications indexed in Scopus database, 28 institutions that have made significant contribution were selected for analysis. Overall, Russian medical universities have demonstrated rapid growth of publication activity over the recent years. Several typical growth patterns were identified, that are shared by the majority of institutions. These patterns were found to be independent of funding and number of staff, or geographic location, and most likely reflect the impact of individual institutional policy in the field of scientific research. Additionally, we investigated the structure of total scholarly output of each institution in terms of scientific fields, frequency of international collaborations, and publication language, all of which have demonstrated significant variability. The dynamics of citation was also analyzed. While medical universities in Russian Federation make advances in terms of publication activity, the citation profile is yet to improve.