In the first 8 months of 2024, compared to the same period last year, there was a significant increase in the indicators of Azerbaijani scientists in the scientometric database Scopus. According to the State Agency for Science and Higher Education of the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan, these indicators include the number of users, the number of published scientific papers, the citation rate of scientific papers, the reference impact in the field, the quality of the journals in which the articles are published, and international cooperation.
Thus, the number of Scopus users has more than doubled compared to last year and reached 13 thousand in the first 8 months of this year alone.
Along with the usage indicators, the number of articles by Azerbaijani scientists increased to 2,382 this year, which was slightly more than 1,800 last year. Considering that the number of scientific papers published in 2024 will remain until May-June 2025, it is possible that the total number of scientific papers in the country will exceed 3,000 for the first time in history.
Along with the number of published scientific papers, their quality is also growing. Thus, 11.2% of these articles are among the 10% most cited scientific papers in the world. Last year, this figure was 9.2%. In addition, in 2024, the Field-Weighted Citation Index (FWCI) in Azerbaijan exceeded the world average (1.0) and reached 1.97. This means that all published scientific papers receive, on average, 97% more citations in their field. Last year, this figure was 1.05. In the first 8 months of 2024, 1481 articles were published in journals of the first quarter (996) or second quarter (485) quartiles. In the same period last year, this figure was 733 (first quarter – 486, second quarter – 257).
In the 12 months of last year, the number of scientific papers published within the framework of international cooperation (i.e. with foreign co-authors) was 856 (47%), while in the first period this figure increased to 1594 (67%) in the first 8 months of the current year.
