Application of scientific indicators for comparative characteristics of medical universities in Russia

The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of scientific activities of the largest medical universities in Russia on the basis of data from foreign and domestic scientific resources, and to establish the degree of correlation between the data presented in various citation indexes. The information on publications of employees of the 20 largest medical universities of the Russian Federation for last five years was analyzed: the number of articles, the number of citations of articles and University Hirsch index. The sources were the database of the Russian Scientific Citation Index (RINC) (the publications in the journals included in the core of the RINC were taken into account separately), the Scopus database and the Web Of Science database (WoS). On the basis of the data obtained, the organizations were ranked according to several scientific indicators and correlation between various indicators was established using the coefficients of rank correlation. Correlation was revealed between different indicators of publication activity in the WoS and Scopus databases. There was no significant correlation between the data obtained in the analysis of citations in the core of the RINC with the data obtained from the analysis of citations in the international databases WoS and Scopus. Correlations with the indexes in other databases and the core of the RINC were also not revealed. The study was limited only to medical universities of the Russian Federation and the results cannot be used to compare indicators in other fields of science. To analyze the publication activity of medical universities, the use of databases (DB) Scopus, WoS is possible. The indexes calculated on the basis of the citation of journals included in both the RINC and separately into the core of the RINC cannot be applied to characterize the intensity of scientific research at the international level. Carefully use indicators derived from RINC data in combination with indicators obtained from the Scopus and WoS databases. It also raises doubts about the objectivity of the ratings of medical universities, which are based on the use of data from the RINC. For the first time, using the method of statistical analysis were established correlations or their absence between the citation indexes in various databases. The results of the research can be used to compile medical university ratings based on the results of scientific activity