Social Science Research in Haryana: A Scientometric Analysis of Publications Output During 2005–14

This paper analyzes 1286 research publications of social sciences in Haryana during the last ten years (2005–14), as covered in Scopus International database. The study quantifies publication data in various aspects of performance, such as the publication growth, research impact and quality, national and international collaboration, distribution by sub-fields, contribution and impact of organizations and authors, major areas of research emphasis as reflected in keywords, preferred channels of research communications and characteristics of higher cited papers. The findings reveal that Haryana social science publications has increased at an annual average growth rate of 16.94% and registered an average citation impact per paper of 3.80 during 2005–14. 13% share of the social science publications of Haryana is internationally collaborative. Business, management and accounting contributed the largest share (51.01%) to social science output, followed by social sciences-general (43.55%), economics, econometrics & finance (11.74%), decision science (9.80%) and psychology (6.61%) during 2005–14. Gurgaon contributed the largest share (33.98%) to Haryana's social science output, followed by Kurukshetra (11.98%), Rohtak (11.66%), Hisar (8.24%), Bhiwani (6.22%), Faridabad (6.14%), Sonepat (4.28%), etc during 2005–14. The top most productive 20 organizations and 25 authors in social sciences contributed 68.04% and 30.17% publications share and 82.17% and 31.97% citations share to the total papers and citations in social sciences in Haryana during 2005–14. The top 31 journals together accounted for 26.58% (342 publications) share of the total output of Haryana's in social sciences during 2005–14. Only 20 top high cited papers in social sciences received 35 or more citations since their publication and together registered the average citation per paper of 93.35 during 2005–14. The 20 high cited papers (16 articles and 4 reviews) had 7 papers had the participation of single organization (no collaboration) and 7 involve national collaboration and 6 international collaboration. These 20 high cited papers had the participation of 49 authors and 38 organizations. For improving research in social sciences, concentrated efforts should be made in Haryana to improve teaching and research, create better research environment, seek larger funding from ICSSR and UGC for research projects and enlarged national and international collaboration.