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Chapter 24
Evaluating the Research
Productivity of Pakistan
in the 21st Century
Ikram Ul Haq
College of Dentistry, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Rabiya Ali Faridi

Notre Dame Institute of Education, Karachi, Pakistan

ABSTRACT
The publications of scholarly communication have been considered as the driving force and the backbone
for international development. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the scholarly research produc-
tivity by authors affiliated to Pakistan in all areas of knowledge. The Web of Science (WoS) database
has been used to extract the records of publications produced by the authors affiliated to Pakistan and
published during the 21st century from 2000 to 2019. The analysis of the retrieved documents has been
conducted on the following parameters; distribution of publications by year, percentage, and annual
growth rate; the top-20 most productive institutions, subject categories, collaborative countries, and
preferred source publications. Findings have shown that 148,678 publications were produced by Pakistan
with an average of 7,434 documents per year and 42% documents were produced during the last three
years from 2017-19. COMSATS University Islamabad and Quaid-e-Azam University were found to be
the most productive institutions while medicine general internal and engineering electrical electronic
were found as the preferred areas of research. The examination of research showed that China is on the
top, followed by United States and Saudi Arabia, but the highest citation impact in documents produced
in collaboration with the authors are of Switzerland. Pakistan Journal of Botany has emerged as the
most favorite source of publication. The state-of-the-art systematic research plays a significant role in
the development of the country and is compulsory for sustainable developments. This study would help
to re-examine the research strategies, support in the decision-making process, and further fund alloca-
tion. The result also highlights the strong and least preferred areas of research.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6618-3.ch024

Copyright © 2021, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
 
Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

INTRODUCTION

The sustainable development of the country depends on the innovative, indigenous, authentic and incessant
research activities (Haq & Tanveer, 2019; Haq, & Alfouzan, 2017). The systematic research process is
an inventive task. The basic objectives of research are the growth of existing theories, disclosure of new
knowledge through the application of various organized research methods and finding out the solution of
everyday problems (Pervez, 2018). The publications of scholarly communication and research findings
provide a steady foundation for the imaginative mind to conceive new dimensions of knowledge and to
perform further research to explore new horizons of knowledge (Anjum, 2005).
Universities and Degree Awarding Institutions (DAIs) are the nucleus of research productivity and play
a vital role in the socio-economic development of society (Iqbal, Mahmood & Iqbal, 2018). Top-quality
postgraduate education with sound research training and comprehensive reading of relevant literature
coupled with creative imaginative power greatly facilitate research (Memon, 2017). The development of
higher education and the number of publications are accumulating at an astonishing pace in the twenty-
first century all over the world (Piracha & Ameen, 2019). The role of teachers at university-level has been
manifold; they not only engage in the teaching and learning process but also train the young generation in
the art of conducting and publishing research (Mägi & Beerkens, 2016). The focus of the contemporary
world has changed from industrial to knowledge and information-based economy (Shafique & Mahmood,
2008). Information is considered a substantial resource for any profession, institution, country, region
and the whole world (Haq & Tanveer, 2019).
As the quantity of scholarly and scientific publications has been increasing manifold in a digital
milieu, the evaluation of data has also gained importance (Haq, Elahi & Dana, 2019). The bibliometric
procedure helps to ascertain the different attributes of publications and provide valuable assistance in
bibliographic control to the overflow of information. The findings of the quantitative assessment support
in managerial decisions, provision of budget, and monitoring research policies as well as to redesign
the organizational priorities (Ibrahim & Jan, 2015; Haq, et. al. 2019; Javed, Ahmad, & Khahro, 2020).
Pakistan came into being in August 14th, 1947 and now is the home of 207 million peoples with
$1.061 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP per capita has been recorded $5,400, having
the 9th largest labor force estimated at 63.89 million, spending 2.9% of its GDP on education during
2017 and the literacy ratio is 59.1% based on U.S. Central Intelligence Agency records (2020). But latest
statistics of Pakistan showed that the literacy ratio has reached to 62.3% and Pak Rupees 829.2 billion
expenditures spent on education during the year 2017-18, that is, 2.4% of total GDP and 53031.9 thou-
sand new students were enrolled in universities and DAIs of Pakistan during 2018-19 (Pakistan, 2019).
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) provides the data for the academic year of 2014-2015 that
1298600 new students were enrolled at Pakistani Universities/DAIs and constituent colleges (Pakistan,
Higher Education Commission, 2020). At that time the estimated population of Pakistan as shown by
The World Bank were 189.4 million. It meant that 0.68% of the new enrolment in universities/DAI in
Pakistan. According to UNESCO, the current estimated population of Pakistan is 212.2 million, amongst
these 20964647 (9.87%) have been enrolled at the level of higher education (United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2020). The statistics of Pakistan also confirmed that 10% of the
gross enrolment ratio at tertiary level of education during the period of 2012-17 (Pakistan, 2019).
The Global Information Technology Report 2016 provides the network readiness indices of 139
countries of the world. The indicator number 2.07 deals with Tertiary education gross enrollment rate
%, Greece secured the first position with the value of 110.2, followed by Korea, Rep (95.3), Finland

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

(91.1), United States (88.8) and Spain (87.1). Pakistan stands at the 115th rank with a value of 10.4,
whereas India stands on 89th with a value of 23.9, Iran at the 66th with a value of 32 and Turkey stands
at a respectable stature of 17th with a value of 79.00 (Baller, Dutta, & Lanvin, 2016). According to the
Global Competitiveness Report 2019 of the World Economic Forum, Pakistan scored the 110th position
in 141 listed countries of the world. The component index number 12.5 deals with scientific publica-
tions, Pakistan stands at the 53rd rank with a value of 220.3, whereas the United States is at the top rank
in this index with a value of 2,088.0 (Schwab, 2019).

HEC Recognized Universities in Pakistan

Pakistan inherited two universities, the University of the Punjab (UP) founded in 1882 at Lahore and
University of Sindh, Karachi (Later shifted to Hyderabad), which was going through the embryonic
phase. After independence, University of Peshawar was the university in 1950 and University of Karachi
(UoK) commenced in the following year, 1951. There were only four universities in Pakistan since 1960.
Agriculture College, Faisalabad and Engineering College, Lahore were converted into Agriculture Uni-
versity, Faisalabad, and University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore in 1961. The University of
Islamabad (now Quaid-e-Azam University) was established in 1965 as capital was shifted from Karachi
to Islamabad. Between 1970 to 1980, 12 more universities were constituted and the first private univer-
sity, Aga Khan University (AKU) was given a charter in 1981, so the number of universities reached to
20 (Haider, 1986). Iqbal, Mahmood, and Iqbal (2018) stated that there were 59 universities and DAIs
in Pakistan in 2001 and this number has reached to 179 in 2016. The remarkable growth was seen after
the establishment of HEC in 2002 and 51 new universities and DAIs and 18 new campuses of already
existing universities were established in Pakistan during the five-year timespan from 2003-2008 (Meo,
Almasri, & Usmani, 2013).
Presently, there are 210 HEC recognized Universities and DAIs in Pakistan, 60% (n=127) in the
public sector while 40% (n=83) are managed by private sector (Table-1). The maximum number of
universities are geographically located in Punjab Province (n=70; 33.33%), followed by Sindh (n=60;
28.57%), Khyber Pakhtunkhaw (n=40; 19.05), capital city, Islamabad (n=22; 10.48%), Balochistan
(n=9; 4.29%), Azad Jammu & Kashmir (n=7; 3.33%) and Gilgit Baltistan (n=2; 0.95). The detail of
universities has been shown in Figure-1.

International Ranking of Universities and Pakistan

There are 1397 universities of 92 countries listed in the Time Higher Education (THE) World University
Rankings 2020 and 14 universities and DAIs of Pakistan are included as shown in Table-1. The only one
university of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) has reached in the top 500 universities of the
World. The University of Peshawar found at the top in teaching standard followed by the National Uni-
versity of Sciences and Technology (NUST). QAU has outclassed others in research standards followed
by University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. The highest citation score was received by QAU followed by
COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI). As far as the industry income’s score is concerned, the University
of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore found on the first rank followed by University of Agriculture,
Faisalabad. Lahore University of Management Sciences has the highest score in International Outlook
followed by International Islamic University, Islamabad.

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

Figure 1. Geographical distributions of HEC recognized universities of Pakistan

Source: https://www.hec.gov.pk/

Research Productivity

In the context of global visibility of research, Iqbal, Mahmood, and Iqbal (2018) argued that the time
has gone when only publication of research sufficed for gaining recognition but in the contemporary
competitive world, the assessment of the impact of research has an equally important component. The
number of citations determines the impact of scholarly communication. The more the publication is
cited by researchers, the more impact it will have.
Javed, Ahmad, and Khohro (2020) assessed the research productivity of Pakistani universities geo-
graphically located at the capital city, Islamabad. Out of 21 universities, the Scopus database provides
the publications data of 17 universities. The study reported astonishing results that 1% of the population
of Islamabad, consisted of 11% of the country’s higher seats of learning and producing 34% (n=36577)
of the total national research output. There is a very narrow difference between the publications’ output
between CUI (n=10229) and QAU (n=10017). NUST stands on the third rank with 6899 publications.
Top-three universities produced nearly three-fourth (n=27145; 74%) of the total research output. The
highest citations impact found QAU with an average of 11.27 citations per documents, followed by CUI
(8.51) and Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (7.49).
Iqbal, Mahmood, and Iqbal (2018) measured the factors of research productivity and visibility of
Pakistan. The Web of Science (WoS) database was used to extract the publication data over a period of 35
years from 1981-2015. A total of 49,110 documents were found and the majority of papers were written
on the subject of chemistry (n=7406; 15.1%) followed by plants and animal sciences (n=7149; 14.6%)
and clinical medicine (n=6720; 13.7%). QAU was found to be most productive with 8863 (11.86%) re-
search publications followed by UoK (8.89%), AKU (6.98%) and University of Agriculture, Faisalabad
(6.91%). The highest citation impact, 13.04 citations per paper was found with the documents produced
by National Center of Physics (NCP). The study determined that the research produced in teams of five
or more authors got more citations as compared to the collaboration of less than five authors.

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

Table 1. Pakistani Universities in the World University Ranking 2020

Industry Int’l
Rank University Overall Teaching Research Citations
Income Outlook
Quaid-e-Azam
401-500 38.8-42.3 20.5 18.6 81.5 34.4 45.5
University (QAU)
COMSATS
601-800 University 28.3-35.2 16.9 9.9 65.5 34.5 45.7
Islamabad (CUI)
University of
801-1000 Agriculture, 22.2-28.2 17.5 16.5 28.6 41.9 36.6
Faisalabad
International
Islamic
801-1000 22.2-28.2 14.4 7.5 53.1 34.4 46.6
University,
Islamabad
Lahore University
801-1000 of Management 22.2-28.2 19.5 12.7 33.9 35.1 49.0
Sciences
National
University of
801-1000 Sciences and 22.2-28.2 21.1 11.7 35.1 34.8 40.0
Technology
(NUST)
University of the
801-1000 22.2-28.2 19.5 10.4 34.1 35.2 32.5
Punjab (UP)
Bahauddin
1000+ Zakariya 10.7-22.1 13.6 9.0 19.8 34.4 35.1
University
University of
Engineering
1000+ 10.7-22.1 15.3 9.2 19.4 34.7 44.4
& Technology
(UET) Lahore
Government
College
1000+ 10.7-22.1 14.0 9.1 5.7 34.4 35.3
University,
Lahore
University of
1000+ 10.7-22.1 25.2 10.7 15.0 34.4 34.2
Peshawar
PMAS Arid
Agriculture
1000+ 10.7-22.1 13.9 8.8 19.1 34.4 34.7
University,
Rawalpindi
University of
1000+ 10.7-22.1 11.7 8.3 10.5 34.4 39.5
Sargodha
University of
Veterinary and
1000+ 10.7-22.1 14.5 10.3 8.5 42.2 36.5
Animal Sciences,
Lahore
Source: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2020

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

Mushtaq, Abid, and Qureshi (2012) examined the research output in medical sciences by the 24 uni-
versities of Pakistan for the period of 2007 to 2010. They used the statistics of publications maintained
by HEC against each university of Pakistan. HEC kept the record of only Journal Citation Report (JCR)
Indexed publications. Twenty-four medical universities produced 5886 publications with an average of
1471.5 publications per year. The UoK found a most productive university with 1447 (24.58%) publica-
tions, followed by AKU (n=1258; 21.37%) and the UP (n=1061; 18.02%). A wide gulf has been observed
between highly productive universities and other universities with low research output. Nearly 64% of
the medical research produced by the top-three universities while 16 medical universities had less than
100 publications each during the projected period.
Haq, Elahi, and Dana (2019) surveyed the research output of Pakistani affiliated authors in the field
of medical microbiology based on the PubMed database. A total of 333 publications found from 2013
to 2017. The majority of publications were dealt with the subcategory of Epidemiology (n=30; 9%), a
four-author pattern found most preferred authorship pattern (n=55; 16.51) and AKU has emerged as the
most productive organization (n=35; 10.5%) based on the affiliated address of principal authors. The
highest number of articles published in the Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences (n=24; 7.21%) and
there were 134 journals with one article each.
Meo, Almasri, and Usmani (2013) measured the research productivity of Pakistan during 1996 to
2012. A total of 58,133 documents have been produced in global sciences with an average of 6.22 cita-
tions per document. QAU found on the top with 4891 (8.41%) publications followed by UoK (n=3462;
6.51%), AKU (n=3220; 5.53%) and UP (n=2740; 4.71%). The subject-wise distribution of documents
showed that medicine was found to be the preferred area of research with 16539 (28.45%) documents.
The study suggested formulating a comprehensive practicable strategic plan in order to boost research
culture in the country.
A 2011 study reported that Pakistan produced 62 publications on neurosurgery during 2003 to 2008
in PubMed indexed journals (Shamim, Enam, & Kazim, 2011). Another study on Zika Virus research
revealed that 44 articles were produced by Pakistan during 2008 to 2017. Its share was only 0.71% in
3384 of the global output on Zika Virus (Nasir & Ahmed, 2018). A scientometric analysis was carried
out on 2,114 research articles in nanoscience and nanotechnology produced by Pakistan for the period
of 2000 to 2011. QAU emerged a most productive research organization and the maximum citation
impact 8.53 citations per article was gained by the publications of National Institute for Biotechnology
and Genetic Engineering Pakistan (Bajwa, Yaldram, & Rafique, 2013). A bibliometric analysis on phar-
macy/pharmacology research exposed that 3,351 documents were produced by Pakistan from 1975 to
2014 with an annual growth of 29.291%. The share of Pakistan was 0.25% in global research output on
pharmacy. The United States has been on the top in research collaboration followed by Germany, Saudi
Arabia and England (Nasir, Ahmed, Asrar & Gilani, 2015).
Shehatta and Mahmood (2016) assessed the quantity and quality of Saudi Arabian research published
during 1980 to 2014. A total of 88,506 papers were published in WoS indexed sources, 84.48% of the
documents were created by 24 organizations. King Saud University was found the most productive with
27,302 (30.85%) papers, followed by King Abdulaziz University (n=13412; 15.15%). Ten organizations
have less than 1,000 publications each. The United States with 8,204 (23.31%) paper stands on the first
rank in international research collaboration followed by Egypt, England and Canada, but the highest
citation impact was found with Switzerland and Netherlands. Two national journals, Saudi Medical
Journal and Annals of Saudi Medicine found preferred sources for publication.

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

Akhondzadeh, et al. (2017) wrote that in 2014, Iran produced 2% of the total global research output,
having 54,800 scientists, that was equal to 0.7% of world researchers, 51% of the researchers belonged to
universities having 326 publications per million populations. There were 1750 publications with Iranian
affiliated in WoS in 2000, the number of publications was reached 31,619 in 2014. The research areas
on engineering, chemistry, material sciences and physics were found most preferred. Haq and Tanveer
(2020) stated that the share of Pakistani affiliated research has been 0.52% of the global output having 354
researchers per million populations, while Malaysia and Iran have 2358 and 671 researchers, respectively.
The review of relevant literature showed that a number of bibliometric studies have been carried out
in Pakistan. There is a need to conduct such studies from time to time to evaluate the research growth
even the same studies could be replicated to assess the result of research policies and funding. The aim
of this paper is to evaluate the research productivity of Pakistan in the 21st century as reflected on the
WoS database.

OBJECTIVES

Following were the main objectives of the study: -

1. To calculate the number of WoS indexed publications affiliated to Pakistan between the years 2000
to 2019.
2. To measure the research productivity of top-20 research producing universities, DAIs and organiza-
tion of Pakistan from the projected data of objective no.1.
3. To distribute the publications by subject categories to assertion the strong area of research in
Pakistan.
4. To examine the trend of international research collaborating countries.
5. To assess the top-20 preferred journals/source titles by Pakistan affiliated researchers.

METHODOLOGY

This is a descriptive quantitative research study. The Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Sci-
ence (WoS) of Clarivate Analytics database has been used to extract the records of publications produced
by the authors affiliated to Pakistan and published during the 21st century from 2000 to 2019. The word
“Pakistan” has been written in the main search box and the “Address” option has been selected in the
subsequent option box in the WoS Core Collection. The customized timespan was entered from 2000 to
2019. The projected data was downloaded on January 26th, 2020.
The analysis of the retrieved documents has been conducted on the following parameters; distribu-
tion of publications by year, percentage and annual growth rate; top-20 most productive institutions,
subject categories, collaborative countries and preferred journals. The following formula has been used
to calculate the average annual growth rate (Prats, 2018).

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

Annual growth rate = 100

(most recent value − past value)
past value

RESULTS

Year-wise Distribution of Publications

A total of 1,48,678 documents have been produced by Pakistani affiliated authors for the period of 2000
to 2019 with an average of 7,434 documents per year. The Mean and Standard Error of Mean (SEM)
counted as 7,434.80±1601.87 with Standard Deviation 7,164 and the Average Annual Growth Rate
(AAGR) 20.90 of targeted publication as reflected by WoS database. The data of Table-2 has vividly
demonstrated that there has been a growing tendency of publications. The maximum Annual Growth
Rate (AGR) was found in 2006-2007 publications and the lowest AGR was recorded during 2002-2003
publications. Almost 43% of the total publications were produced during the last three years 2017 to
2019. About 18% of the documents were published in the first ten years but noteworthy progress (78%)
has been seen in the latter half.

Research Productivity by the Universities, DAIs and Research Organization

The top-20 most productive universities, DAIs and research organizations of Pakistan have been selected
from WoS to compare the number of publications, their total citations, an average number of citations
per documents and h-index documents (Table-3). The researchers of these universities have contributed
63% (n=92,068) of the total documents. CUI has been on the top with 15,782 (10.61%) documents,
followed by QAU (n=14070; 9.46%) and University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (n=9,033; 6.07%). Only
two universities were having more than 10,000 publications, five universities have their publications
range between 5000 to 9999 and the other 17 universities have their total publications less than 5,000.
The NCP has been on 17th number in term of quantity of publications but has been standing on the first
rank in citation impact, its publications received an average of 23.56 citations per documents, followed
by AKU (20.06). The maximum, 147 h-index publications were found in AKU.

Segregation of Documents by Subjects

The WoS database has been classified all the documents produced by the universities and research
organization of Pakistan into different subject categories. The top-20 subject categories in terms of
the number of publications have been presented in Table-4. The maximum research was carried out on
Medical General Internal (n=13,177; 8.86%) followed by Engineering Electrical Electronic (n=11,534;
7.75%) and Plant Sciences (n=7,315; 4.92%). The highest citation impact, 15.47 citations per document
was found on Environmental Science and followed by 14.66 citations per document on Multidisciplinary
Sciences research. The subject area of Computer Science Theory and Methods received a minimum scale,
2.52 citations per document. The highest number of h-index articles (n-131) has been received by the
publications on Medicine General Internal.

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

Table 2. Distribution of publications by year (n=1,48,678)

Year Publications Percentage (%) AGR

2000 705 0.47
2001 812 0.54 15.18
2002 981 0.65 20.81
2003 1,014 0.68 3.36
2004 1,265 0.85 24.75
2005 1,620 1.09 28.06
2006 2,164 1.45 33.58
2007 3,385 2.27 56.42
2008 4,123 2.77 21.80
2009 4,681 3.14 13.53
2010 5,592 3.76 19.46
2011 6,825 4.59 22.05
2012 7,434 5.00 8.92
2013 8,505 5.72 14.41
2014 9,334 6.27 9.75
2015 12,205 8.20 30.76
2016 14,427 9.70 18.21
2017 17,903 12.04 24.09
2018 21,680 14.58 21.10
2019 24,041 16.16 10.89
Mean 7,434.80
St Dev 7,164 Average Annual Growth Rate 20.90
SEM 1601.87

Research Collaborative Countries

More than half of documents (n=80904; 54.41%) were created with the research collaboration of the 20
most preferred countries as shown in Table-5. China has been found as the top preference with 15,788
(10.61%) publications, followed by United States (n=12,972; 8.78%) and Saudi Arabia (n=10,903;
7.33%). More than 10,000 publications have been produced by Pakistan in collaboration with these top
three countries. Amongst the top three countries, the research collaboration with the United States got
the highest citation impact with an average of 26.86 citations per document. Overall, Switzerland has
the highest citation impact with an average of 64.31citations per document, amongst the top-20 research
collaborative countries, followed by Spain (60.61) and Russia (58.05). The h-Index of first three collab-
orative countries was not found, amongst others England has been on top with 198 h-index publications
followed by India (178 h-index publications) and Germany (169 h-index publications).

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

Table 3. Top-20 most research productive university and DAIs of Pakistan (n=92,068)

S. No. Organizations-Enhanced Publications Citations ACPP h-Index

COMSATS University Islamabad
1. 15,782 135,860 8.60 102*
(CUI)
2. Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) 14,070 213,946 15.20 135*
University of Agriculture
3. 9,033 1,06,789 11.43 107
Faisalabad
4. University of the Punjab (UP) 9,033 78,832 8.73 80
National University of Sciences
5. 8,664 56,783 6.55 75
Technology Pakistan (NUST)
6. Karachi University 7,576 64,277 8.48 74
7. Aga Khan University (AKU) 7,545 1,51,357 20.06 147
8. BahauddinZakariya University 4,711 43,769 9.29 74
9. University of Peshawar 4,645 43,020 9.26 71
Government College University
10. 4,355 33,310 7.65 66
Faisalabad
Government College University
11. 3,640 22,997 6.32 50
Lahore
Pakistan Institute of Engineering
12. 3,387 45,378 13.4 80
Applied Science
13. University of Sargodha 3,361 21,756 6.47 51
14. Islamia University Bahawalpur 3,167 18,843 5.95 45
Dow University of Health
15. 3,103 14,778 4.76 49
Sciences
University of Engineering
16. 2,722 17,474 6.4 49
Technology Lahore
National Centre for Physics
17. 2,643 62,257 23.56 105
(NCP)
18. Arid Agriculture University 2,458 21,258 8.65 54
19. University of Lahore 2,422 10,598 4.38 39
University of Veterinary and
20. 2,361 10,942 4.63 37
Animal Sciences
*h-Index based on the documents published in 2001 to 2016.

Preferred Journals

Table-6 presents the list of the top-20 most preferred journals, its publication country, impact and quartile
factors, coverage period in WoS, the total number of published documents, citations, average citations
per paper and h-index scale. Pakistan Journal of Botany was found a most preferred journal with 3,818
documents, followed by Indo-American Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (n=3,068) and Journal
of Pakistan Medical Association (n=3,017). Eleven, amongst the top-20 journals, are published from
Pakistan, while four journals from United States, two from England and one each from India and Ger-
many. Fifteen journals are indexed in Journal Citation Report (JCR) – 2018 and the IEEE Access has
the highest Impact and Quartile factor (4.098/Q1) followed by Plos One (2.776/Q2). Only three journals

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

Table 4. Segregation of documents by subject categories (n=80904)

S. No. WoS Categories Publications Citations ACPP H-Index

1. Medicine General Internal 13,177 113,808 8.63 131*
2. Engineering Electrical Electronic 11,534 40,127 3.47 55*
3. Plant Sciences 7,315 74,423 10.17 82
4. Material Science Multidisciplinary 6,642 69,220 10.52 84
5. Chemistry Multidisciplinary 6,370 49,897 7.83 71
6. Chemistry Medicinal 5,555 36,346 6.54 71
7. Pharmacology Pharmacy 5,423 42,296 7.8 67
8. Telecommunications 5,238 18,674 3.57 47
9. Environmental Sciences 5,174 80,025 15.47 103
Computer Science Theory and
10. 5,007 12,637 2.52 39
Methods
Computer Science Information
11. 4,756 17,617 3.7 47
Systems
12. Physics Applied 4,251 37,133 8.74 60
13. Agriculture Multidisciplinary 4,177 20,121 4.82 40
14. Medicine Research Experimental 4,137 16,222 3.92 41
Computer Science Artificial
15. 3,814 19,303 5.06 49
Intelligence
16. Biochemistry Molecular Biology 3,525 49,198 13.96 77
17. Biology 3,466 15,143 4.37 35
18. Physics Multidisciplinary 3,463 41,010 11.84 73
19. Multidisciplinary Sciences 3,332 48,833 14.66 61
20. Mathematics Applied 3,265 32,961 10.1 68

have been found with complete timespan coverage from 2000 to 2019; other journals either they have
lately indexed in WoS or Pakistani authors have succeeded to publish their papers in a specific period.
The maximum number of citations was received by the Pakistan Journal of Botany (n=27,241) but the
highest citation impact with an average of 12.77 citations per paper received by Plos One. The Journal
of Botany got maximum (n=45) h-Index publications, followed by Plos One (n=42) and the minimum 3
h-index documents endowed by Indo-American Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Pakistan Journal
of Medical Health Sciences and Rawal Medical Journal, these journals are the part of Emerging Source
Citation Index (ESCI).

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Table 5. Top-20 research collaborative countries (n=80904)

S. No. Country Publications Citations ACPP h-Index

1. China 15,788 2,70,147 17.11 *
2. USA 12,972 3,48,483 26.86 *
3. Saudi Arabia 10,903 1,75,210 16.06 *
4. England 8,445 2,54,285 30.11 198
5. Malaysia 6,160 1,03,110 16.74 124
6. South Korea 5,872 1,62,964 27.75 152
7. Germany 5,671 1,91,477 33.76 169
8. India 4,249 1,75,635 41.34 178
9. Turkey 3,754 1,20,026 31.97 141
10. Italy 3,609 1,67,908 46.52 163
11. Australia 3,578 1,40,021 39.13 139
12. France 3,423 1,48,600 43.41 155
13. Canada 3,411 1,35,390 39.69 141
14. Iran 2,592 1,22,628 47.31 140
15. Brazil 2,488 1,38,643 55.72 154
16. Egypt 2,340 94,000 40.17 131
17. Switzerland 2,300 1,47,915 64.31 158
18. Spain 2,249 1,36,315 60.61 153
19. Austria 2,245 97,770 43.55 129
20. Russia 2,152 1,24,932 58.05 141
*h-Index documents was not found

DISCUSSION

The data of SJR revealed that 20,548 research documents were produced by Pakistani affiliated authors
during the year 2018 and the share of Pakistan to global research output was just 0.52% (Haq & Tanveer,
2020). Current study indicates that 1,48,678 documents were produced by Pakistan during from 2000 to
2019 with an AAGR of 20.90. There were 705 documents on the credit of Pakistan in the year 2000, but
the number reached 24,041 in 2019. Almost 43% of the documents were published during the last three
years of the study. Majority of the research (n=92,068; 63%) was produced by the top-20 universities,
DAIs and research organizations. CUI has been on the top, followed by QAU and University of Agri-
culture, Faisalabad. The NCP got the highest citation impact followed by AKU and QAU. The research
evaluation of Islamabad based universities also portrayed that QAU and CUI were the most productive
universities (Javed, sAhmad, & Khahro, 2020). Although this study was limited to the capital city, Is-
lamabad and our study covered the whole country, even then QAU and CUI are still the top-ranked. The
80,904 (54.41%) publications were covered by the top-20 subject categories, the majority of documents
belonged to the category of Medicine general internal followed by Engineering electrical electronic and
Plant sciences. Study conducted in 2013 by (Meo, Almasri, & Usmani) also revealed that Medicine has
been the most preferred area of research in Pakistan.

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

Table 6. List of top-20 journals/Source publications (n=30,455; 20.48%)

Impact
S. Coverage of
Name of Journal (Publication Country) Factor/ Publications Citations ACPP h-Index
No. Period
Quartile
1. Pakistan Journal of Botany(Pakistan) 0.672/Q4 2000-2019 3,818 27,241 7.13 45
Indo-American Journal of Pharmaceutical
2. ESCI 2015-2019 3,068 38 0.01 3
Sciences (India)
Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association,
3. 0.642/Q4 2010-2019 3,017 7,046 2.34 23
(Pakistan)
JCPSP Journal of the College of Physicians
4. 0.407/Q4 2007-2019 2,840 7,807 2.75 23
and Surgeons (Pakistan)
Pakistan Journal of Medical Health Sciences
5. ESCI 2015-2019 2,145 240 0.11 3
(Pakistan)
Journal of the Chemical Society of Pakistan
6. 0.393/Q4 2000-2019 1,978 5,593 2.83 20
(Pakistan)
7. Pakistan Journal of Zoology (Pakistan) 0.79/Q3 2007-2019 1,857 4,970 2.68 18
Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences
8. 0.529/Q3 2008-2019 1,483 4,557 3.07 19
(Pakistan)
Pakistan Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences
9. 0.59/Q4 2007-2019 1,403 4,516 3.22 22
(Pakistan)
Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences
10. 0.834/Q4 2007-2019 1,350 3,435 2.54 18
(Pakistan)
International Journal of Agriculture and
11. 0.802/Q3 2009-2019 998 5,260 5.27 23
Biology (Pakistan)
Pakistan Journal of Agricultural Sciences
12. 0.618/Q3 2009-2019 918 2,744 2.99 16
(Pakistan)
13. Cureus (USA) ESCI 2015-2019 913 738 0.81 10
14. Plos One (USA) 2.776/Q2 2007-2019 785 10,022 12.77 42
15. IEEE Access (USA) 4.098/Q1 2015-2019 755 2713 3.59 21
ActaCrystallographica Section E Structure
16. 0347/Q4 2001-2012 727 2079 2.86 14
Report Online (England)
17. Rawal Medical Journal, (Pakistan) ESCI 2015-2019 696 127 0.18 3
International Journal of Advanced Computer
18. Science and Applications ESCI 2015-2019 618 520 0.84 9
(England)
Environmental Science and Pollution
19. 2.914/Q2 2008-2019 569 5,809 10.21 34
Research (Germany)
20. Physics in Plasma (USA) 1.91/Q3 2000-2019 546 5,894 10.79 34

Most of the Pakistani researchers collaborated with the authors of China, followed by United States,
Saudi Arabia and England and the highest citation impact found with Switzerland, Spain and Russia. A
study on research publications on medical microbiology by Pakistani authors indicated that most of the
research collaboration was done with United States, China, England and Saudi Arabia (Haq, Elahi, &
Dana, 2019). Current study has also indicated these four countries on the top in collaboration but the order
of countries has changed. There were nine locally published journals amongst the top ten most preferred
journals. This fact is evident that local researchers have strong trust on the credibility of national journals.

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

Bashir (2013) calculated that 38,274 papers were produced by Pakistan during the 15-year timespan
from 1996 to 2010, which was 0.32% of the total world production and Pakistan secured the 43rd posi-
tion in global research productivity. The 11,802 (30.83%) publications were the results of international
research collaboration and the highest number of publications found on medicine, followed by agriculture
sciences, chemistry and physics. All publications had been segregated into three five-year intervals and
found that 63.53% of documents were published from 2006 to 2010. The author appreciated the efforts
to attract the almost 500 highly qualified faculty members from oversea, under the HEC Foreign Fac-
ulty Hiring Program, that mattered a lot to boost the research culture in the country. Bajwa, Yaldram a
Rafique (2013) debated on various factors behind the rapid increase in the number of publications after
the year 2000. These were the procurement of the latest equipment for laboratories and modest funding
during 2003-2008 as well as provision of the training facility to researchers. Another significant paper
contributed by Nasir and Ahmed (2013) excavated the dynamics of research growth in the country. The
authors appreciated the Research Productivity Award (RPA) scheme. Pakistan introduced a research in-
centive scheme RPA in 2001-02 to enhance the research activities and promote a healthy research culture
through Pakistan Council for Science and Technology. The research proposals of 4,863 scientists have
been considered eligible, which was 30.68% of the total applicants. Council granted Pak Rupees 265.461
million during 2001-02 to 2012-13 to these scientists. Almost one-third of the proposals (n=1634) were
related to the subject area of chemical sciences, followed by biological sciences and physics. This paper
concluded that such a scheme should be continued and further scientific knowledge should be transferred
into products and services for the sustainable development of the country.
Iqbal, Mahmood and Iqbal (2018) assessed the research productivity of Pakistan for the period of 1981
to 2015 by using the InCite feature of WoS. There were 49,110 papers in 35 years but the present study
used the same database without InCite feature and the number of papers in our study is 1,48,678 in the
timespan of 20 years from 2000 to 2019. CUI was on the 5th position in the previous study but presently
it has reached the top. In research collaborating countries, the United States was on top;, now this posi-
tion has been secured by China. England was not included in the top-10 of collaborating countries in the
2018 study; in the present study it has reached at the 4th position. In the analysis of the highest citation
impact, NCP was at the top with an average of 13.04 citations per paper. This research organization is
still at the top but now its citation impact has further improved to 23.56 citations per paper. Similarly,
the citation impact of AKU has also improved from 10.78 to 20.06 citations per paper. The UoK was at
the 2nd position in research productivity in the 2018 study, but now it has reached the 6th position in the
present study. The bibliometric indicators are dynamic and changing every day so hard work, dedication
and momentum are required to maintain and improve the position by the organization.

CONCLUSION

The remarkable growth of research publications both in quantitative and qualitative aspects have been
observed in the 21st century in Pakistan. The citation impact and international research collaboration
have also been improved. In proportion to the population of the country, we need to improve the enrol-
ment in higher education by establishing more quality institutions to further enhance scholarly output.
There is a burning need to incorporate a research unit with the industrial sector for the socio-economic
development of the country. Research should not be a printed paper that is cited by the other authors of
the same subject. It should be geared towards problem-solving and the implementations on the critical

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Evaluating the Research Productivity of Pakistan in the 21st Century

findings are the real outcome of this intellectual exercise. If the results of the research do not improve the
living standard of the ordinary public, it is useless. The findings of this study are useful for policy-makers
as they can re-visit the national research monitoring programme and allocate the budget accordingly.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We would like to express our special thanks of gratitude to Dr. Sherwin Rodrigues, Director, Norte
Dame Institute of Education, Karachi Pakistan for proofreading the manuscript and his valuable advice
for the improvement of the script.

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