The Scientific Community uses the SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) to examine Australia’s performance for the period 1996-2007.

Australia achieves 11.14 citations per paper over the period which is only just behind Israel with 11.75 [...]. The situation improved slightly in 2007 in which Australia produced 2.5% of work scientific output. It was ranked 11 in 2007 for total outputs, a position it has held for nine of the last 12 years.

At the field level, Australia is placed in the top 10 in 15 of the 27 Scopus fields and no lowers than 18 in any single field for total outputs. Australia ranks in the top for citations per paper in 9 of the 27 Scopus fields and is top five in two fields: Energy and Engineering. Australia achieves top status in several areas but its performance is overshadowed by small nations such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden which clearly strive to produce research in niche areas of the highest quality and academic impact.

(Ian O’Connor. Submission to the review of Australia higher education. Griffith University. 2008)

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