Overall indicators

In 2020, 14,773 Greek scientific publications are recorded in the Web of Science database.This number is increased compared to previous years and is the highest number recorded per year throughout the period 2006-2020, which is also due to the increased number of scientific journals indexed and presented by the Web of Science database. During the same year, the growth rate of Greek publications is higher than that of OECD and EU countries, while considering the number of publications in relation to national R&D expenditure Greece remains in the first positions among EU countries, indicating high "productivity" of scientific publications of the Greek research system.

Number of citations

In relation to impact, innovativeness, quality and visibility, Greek scientific publications are dynamically placed within the international environment, since citation of Greek publications continue to increase in accordance to prior years' trend. Between 2016-2020, Greek publications received 594,333 citations. In addition, they show consistently higher growth rates than EU and OECD countries (except for the period 2013-2017), while the country's relative shares in the reported number of EU and OECD citations also continue to increase. The percentage of publications that receive citations, an indicator directly linked to the originality and quality of the research work and the recognition of the scientific authors, is increasing further, surpassing the corresponding percentages – EU and OECD averages.

Impact factor

Accordingly, the impact factor of Greek scientific publications continues to increase (9.38 for the period 2016-2020) and even widens the distance from the impact factors of EU and OECD countries. The relative impact factor of the scientific publications of the Greek institutions, an indicator that shows whether the average of the citations received by the publications approaches the international average of citations, continues its upward trend throughout the period 2006-2020, surpassing the average indicators of EU and OECD.In terms of bibliometric indicators that record high impact for publications (number or percentage of all publications ranked globally in the 1%, 5%, 10%, 25% and 50% of publications with the highest impact per year and subject area), the corresponding distribution of publications from Greece was 2.0%, 7.9%, 13.8%, 30.0% and 53.5%.This signifies that the publications of the Greek institutions exceeded the global average in all the above percentage categories (1%, 5%, 10%, 25% and 50%). The participation/leadership of Greek scientists in publications with high impact also remains vital. In 26.5% of the publications with Greek participation that belong to the top 1%, the first author comes from a Greek institution. In the top 5% this percentage amounts to 36.8% and in the top 10% to 41.4%.

Most important contributor

During the period 2016-2020, the three most important categories of Greek institutions in terms of the number of publications are Universities, Research Centers supervised by GSRT and Public Hospitals. In terms of the percentage of publications with received citations, the  Research Centers supervised by GSRT are leading followed by Other Public Research Bodies and Universities. Scientific publications originating from the Private Non-Profit Sector, Other Educational Institutions, Private Health Institutions, Research Centers supervised by the GSRT, Universities, Public Hospitals and Other Public Research Institutions achieve a higher impact than the global average. The highest impact among the institutions with regard to the fields of "Natural Sciences", "Social Sciences" and "Medical & Health Sciences"  is achieved by Other Educational Institutions while in the fields of "Engineering & Technology" the Private Non-Profit Institutions and in the fields of "Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences" and "Humanities and the Arts" the Research Centers supervised by the GSRT.

Scientific fields of excellence

Most of the publications of Greek institutions belong to the scientific field of "Natural Sciences", followed by the field of "Medical & Health Sciences" and the field of "Engineering and Technology". During the five-year period 2016-2020, all scientific fields (“Engineering & Technology”, “Medical & Health Sciences”, “Natural Sciences”, “Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences”, “Humanities and the Arts”) apart from the field of “Social Sciences” (resonance index: 0.99) have relative impact factors higher than one (1), thus higher than the corresponding global average performances.

Collaborations

Regarding scientific collaborations with respect to the authoring of publications, the period 2006-2020 shows a continuous increase in collaborations with the international research community. This trend signals the growing networking of Greek scientists, as well as a continuous decline in publications carried out by only one Greek institution. The largest number of collaboration is recorded with the United Kingdom, the USA, Germany, Italy, France and Spain. In all scientific fields, the relative impact factor is significantly higher in the cases of publications that have been authored by international collaboration.