India’s rank and global share in scientific research: how publication counting method and subject selection can vary the outcomes?

During the last two decades, India has emerged as a major knowledge producer in the world, however different reports put it at different ranks, varying from 3 rd to 9 th places. The recent commissioned study reports of Department of Science and Technology (DST) done by Elsevier and Clarivate Analytics, rank India at 5 th and 9 th places, respectively. On the other hand, an independent report by National Science Foundation (NSF) of United States (US), ranks India at 3 rd place on research output in Science and Engineering area. Interestingly, both, the Elsevier and the NSF reports use Scopus data, and yet surprisingly their outcomes are different. This article, therefore, attempts to investigate as to how the use of same database can still produce different outcomes, due to differences in methodological approaches. The publication counting method used and the subject selection approach are the two main exogenous factors identified to cause these variations. The implications of the analytical outcomes are discussed with special focus on policy perspectives.