Visegrád countries' scientific productivity in the European context: A 10‐year perspective using Web of Science and Scopus

Measuring the growth of research productivity is a core element of performance in the higher education sector. This paper aims to analyse the scientific productivity of the Visegrád Group countries (2010–2019) based on data from the Web of Scopus and Scopus databases, as well as data from secondary sources (demographic and socio‐economic factors). Quantitatively, although Poland has the highest output, this is due to its comparative size, whereas output per researcher in Poland is lower than in other Visegrád Four (V4) countries. As regards the qualitative approach, Hungary and the Czech Republic are significantly more effective in terms of scientific collaboration and receive a greater number of European Research Council grants. Thus, bibliometric data in relation to cross‐country characteristic indicators (socio‐economic variables including expenditure on science and having prestigious universities) are related to the positions of the V4 countries. Practical implications suggest that university management within the Visegrád Group must develop and continue strategies to strengthen international collaboration between researchers in order to accelerate change in the dissemination of scientific output at the global level. Academic scholarly publishers may benefit from publishing research on specific issues important to different regions of the world in order to expand their audience and gain new potential resources.