Coverage of journal articles in social sciences and humanities in Web of Science and their representation in citation indexes: a comparison of five European countries

The purpose of this study is to expand the knowledge on publication patterns in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in terms of the coverage of journal articles in Web of Science Core Collection (WoS) and their distribution in citation indexes. Within Journal Citation Reports (JCR), we focus deeper on quartile ranks based on the Journal Impact Factor. We analyse 441,088 publications over the years 2013-2016 from five European countries with focus on the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and, especially on the Czech Republic. With this study, we aim to follow-up a discussion of publication patterns in SSH by providing complex data on recent developments primarily in CEE countries with similar cultural and political heritage (Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland) and comparing the patterns with Flanders (Belgium) and Norway representing Western and Nordic countries. Our findings show that despite a persisting distinction between the group of CEE countries and two Western/Nordic countries across all disciplines, CEE countries approach Western and Nordic counterparts in observed dimensions. Overall, the publication patterns in particular in CEE countries advance into a greater representation in journals indexed in WoS and within WoS into those of greater influence (Q1+Q2). Nonetheless, there are some substantial dissimilarities in the dynamics of this progress between countries and disciplines even within a specific subject area such as Social Sciences and Humanities. We conclude with the suggestion to take the differences between disciplines within SSH into account for research evaluation and science policy.