Displaying strengths and weaknesses in national R&D performance through document cocitation

Document cocitation analysis, as developed by Small and Griffith, was employed as a means of assessing current Dutch participation in science. The method compared overall Dutch published contributions to science (1–2%) with the percentage of Dutch papers in both the cited “cores” of clusters and the citing “margins” of clusters (newly published papers). It was possible to identify clusters ranging form ones with strong Dutch participation to those without Dutch cited or citing papers. The method may help policymakers to detect areas of special concern. The technique can be used for any nation, but may be particularly helpful for the smaller developed countries. We consider the ideal distribution of scientific productivity for those countries.