The contribution of CEE authors to psychological science: a comparative analysis of papers published in CEE and non-CEE journals indexed by Scopus in the period 1996—2013

Psychology is one of the most productive social sciences in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. However, authors from CEE countries continue to publish their work in national scientific journals and limit scientific collaboration to their own national context more often than their Western colleagues. As a result, their contribution to psychological science is largely unknown to the global community. The current study analyzes trends in paper publication in CEE journals, published in CEE countries, and non-CEE psychology journals, published outside of CEE countries, in the period between 1996 and 2013, as well as differences between these two groups of papers. A total of 3846 papers published in 286 journals by CEE authors were extracted from the Scopus database and subsequently analyzed. Among all published papers, 53.2% were published in 14 CEE journals, while 46.7% of papers were published in 272 non-CEE journals. Several general findings emerged from the analyses: (1) In the period between 1996 and 2004, CEE psychologists published their papers more frequently in CEE journals; (2) after 2007, the number of scientific papers increased overall; (3) after 2011, the difference between CEE and non-CEE papers demonstrated a constant and growing trend in favor of non-CEE journals; (4) while the research topics of papers published in both groups were similar, significant differences were found in the methodology applied, where research that used advanced or complex methodology was more often published in non-CEE journals and single-author and review papers were more often published in CEE journals. The significance of these results for European cohesion processes are discussed.