Revealing the scientific comparative advantage of nations: Common and distinctive features

The paper compares the scientific profiles of 199 countries relative to 254 subject categories, based on the impact of knowledge produced in each category, measured by the bibliometric indicator known as Total Fractional Impact (TFI). TFI is calculated on the basis of publications indexed in Web of Science (here over years 2010-2019). The approach taken overcomes some criticalities occurring with indicators previously proposed for the same purpose. With this approach, it is possible to: i) produce, for any country, a scientific specialization profile in correspondence with each subject category; ii) identify distinctive or common characteristics of individual countries or clusters of countries. The approach provides a new tool which may reveal useful for formulation of research policies.