The 14 countries in the Arabian, Persian and Turkish Middle East (AP&TME) increased their share of research publications in the Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge from below 2% to more than 4% in the past ten years. Of 21 main fields classified by Essential Science Indicators, engineering and agricultural science were the fields for which the region accounted for the highest share of world output, at 5.41% and 5.13%, respectively. Five AP&TME countries generated more than 90% of the region’s total publications from 2005 to 2009: Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Turkey produced 81,900 papers for the five-year period, with its share of world output jumping from 0.7% in 2000 to 1.9% in 2009. Iran’s share of world output increased from less than 0.2% to more than 1.3% during the same time period. Among the five countries, mathematics and engineering papers were generally the top cited. Egypt’s largest share of research publications was in pharmacology. Iran’s emphasis was on engineering. Jordan’s largest share of world output was in environmental sciences and ecology. Saudi Arabia’s focus was mathematics, and Turkey’s focus was agriculture.

Source: Thomson Reuters