Comparative evaluation of the leading Islamic countries in science production; Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan in Essential Science Indicators database (2002-2012)

This study uses ESI indicators and statistics database for comparative evaluation of scientific production of Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan during 2002- 2012. This study is a survey and is done scientometrics approaches. SPSS software used For analysis of findings. Toky and Pearson correlation test was performed. Study population was leader Islamic countries who indexed base of ESI information. Our findings show that the ranking of scientific production and citations of countries, respectively, was Turkey, Iran, Egypt and Pakistan. But the in the ranking based on the average citation rate per paper Iran after Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan was located. The average citation rate per paper of turkey in 11 fields of 22 fields was in the highest position and in the 2 fields was the lowest position among others. Iran in 1 field was in highest ranking and in 10 fields in lowest position. Turkey and Iran had the best and the worst performance, respectively. Hot papers in Iran (9), Turkey (7), Pakistan (5), Egypt (4), respectively. The subject areas cited for each of the countries, Turkey (22), Iran (20), Pakistan (19) and Egypt (16), respectively. In all countries between the number of scientific publications and citation rates significant positive correlation were observed. Survey showed among leader Islamic countries Iran’s growth of scientific production, was impressive, but no in growth rate of citations.