Internationalisation of Russian medical research – its main drivers and future prospects through the lens of publications

Decades after the fall of the Iron Curtain, medical research in Russia is poorly integrated into global science. In this study we analyze how the presence of Russian medical research in international journals have changed in recent years (2010-2020). We collected the data from different sources – Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, Russian Science Citation Index. Although the articles in international journals still make up a smaller part of all Russian medical publications, it has grown significantly in recent years. Among these publications, articles in high impact journals account for about a third of the total flow. International cooperation is one of the main drivers of top-level Russian medical publications. Considering how many ties and collaborations with foreign scientists have been cut or suspended recently, we can assume a significant reduction in Russia's presence in core medical journals in the nearest future.