Mapping the Trajectory of Indian Social Science Research: A Decadal Bibliometric Analysis

The present study evaluated the trends in publications and citations in social science research funded by Indian funding agencies over the last decade. We identified the key research areas, preferred document types for publication, and authorship patterns in funded publications using bibliometric mining and visualization. Analysis of 2040 publications produced during the last decade (2014-2023) indexed in Social Science Citation Index of Web of Science revealed that they received a total of 41015 citations, averaging 21.11 citations per paper. The mean relative growth rate of both publications and citations were higher during the first five years (MRp=0.20, MRc=0.12) and declined during the second (MRp=-0.08, MRc=-0.70). A similar trend was seen in the mean doubling time of publications and citations during the first five years (DTp=0.29, DTc=0.17) as compared to the second five-year block period (DTp=-0.12, DTc=-1.01). Correlation between publications and citations was positive (r=0.574), but not statistically significant (p=.082). "Public, Environmental & Occupational Health" was the most dominant subject area in terms of publication counts (210), and "Green & Sustainable Science & Technology" in terms of citation counts (3381). Authors preferred to publish their research in the form of articles (86.91%). Indian social science researchers engaged mostly in collaborative research (97.25%), with three-authored publications being the most prevalent (18.38%). Ganesan Venkatasubramanian from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru was the most prolific author with 48 publications and 287 collaboration linkages. Based on the results, it is clear that social science research in India needs significant attention in terms of financial support. While funding agencies need to enhance research funding, social scientists need to utilize alternative platforms such as author self-archiving repositories to get better visibility for their publications.