Research publications of National Metallurgical Laboratory during the year 2001- 2010 - A study on citation patterns

R&D publication growth, its characteristics, research impact, quality, citation value, category of journals, core research areas, characteristics of productive authors with reference to the National Metallurgical Laboratory, an R&D organisation under CSIR, India is analysed. Based on data obtained from the Science Citation Indices, it was found that the highest number of 120 papers was published by the laboratory in the year 2010, out of which 28 papers received 62 citations during the same year for the papers published by the laboratory whereas the highest citation received was 738 from 88 out of 107 papers published in 2006 as on April 2011. The average number of publications per year was 88.1 for the period under consideration and the average citation per paper was 5.02. The analysis shows that the majority of the authors of this laboratory published their research work in joint authorship (96.48%). The authors mostly prefer to publish their research findings in reputed international journals rather than Indian journals. 72.95 percent citing authors are from foreign countries and only 27.05 percent are Indians. Therefore, the R&D contributions made by scientists of CSIR-NML had a global impact in the field of metallurgy and materials science. High citations received were in the areas of materials science, metallurgical engineering, nanoscience & nanotechnology and environmental engineering over the last decades as observed during the period 2001-2010. The h-index of the last decade was 25.