Latest insight
A quarter of Indonesia's university research output, 24.8% across 2023–2025, is published in just two months: June and December.
In the US those two months carry 15.3%, in the UK 15.5%. The spike tracks the twice-yearly issue cycle of many Indonesian national journals, and it held in every year of the window. For a research office, monthly or quarterly output counts for Indonesian partners will swing on issue dates rather than research activity, so benchmark on full years, not part-year snapshots.
If you'd like to see how your own institution's output falls across the calendar, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices. Comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
525 journals and other venues each carried 1,000 or more university research outputs in 2025, up from 394 in 2021 — a 33% rise, against 13% growth in university output overall.
Those high-volume venues now hold 28.9% of all university research with a known venue. For research offices this matters twice: where your researchers publish is increasingly decided by a growing group of very large outlets, and venue-based quality signals used in hiring and promotion get harder to read as those outlets scale.
If you want to see how much of your own institution's output now sits in these high-volume venues, we can run that cut in a free Connect51 trial — comment or DM me, or visit https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Australia's universities rank 13th in the world for research output, but first for citation impact among the 20 largest producers.
Across 2023–2025, Australian university research averaged a field-weighted citation impact of 3.28, ahead of the UK (3.10), Canada (2.59) and the US (2.35). China published nine times as much at 2.23. For a research office, the lesson is that volume and influence are separate strategies: a system can trail on output and still set the benchmark its peers are measured against.
If you'd like to see how your own institution's output and impact compare with national and international peers, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or visit https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
4% of university-affiliated researchers appear on 35% of all university authorships.
Across 2023–2025, 563,551 researchers with 20 or more outputs accounted for 21.7M of 62.6M authorships, while 6.9M, nearly half of everyone who published, appeared on just one.
For a research office, that says institutional output rests on a small, identifiable core, and that the long tail of occasional authors is where development support, co-authorship brokering and grant coaching can move the numbers most.
If you'd like to see how concentrated output is among your own researchers, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices. Comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
University mathematics output fell 9.8% between 2021 and 2025, from 81,634 to 73,659 works a year, while total university research output grew 15.7%.
It is not a one-year dip: the field shrank in every year of the window, as computer science added 111,000 works a year. For a research office, that changes how a maths department should be read. Benchmarked against institutional growth, a steady department looks like it is slipping; benchmarked against its own field's global trajectory, it may be holding share.
If you want to see how your own departments are moving against their field's global trend, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices. Comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
University papers published in February averaged a field-weighted citation impact of 2.24 across 2022–2024; papers published in December averaged 1.13.
The decline is near-continuous across the year. FWCI benchmarks each paper against others from the same publication year, so a December paper is judged alongside work that has had up to ten extra months to gather citations. For a research office, a department whose output clusters late in the year can look weaker on FWCI without being weaker. Check when papers came out before comparing groups.
If you'd like to see how publication timing shapes your own institution's FWCI, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Seven national university sectors crossed 10,000 research outputs a year between 2021 and 2025, lifting the number of countries above that mark from 61 to 68.
Combined, those seven grew 72% over the period, against 16% for university output worldwide. The Philippines and Jordan more than doubled. For a research office this matters twice over: the partnership map is shifting toward systems that were marginal five years ago, and the peer set you benchmarked against in 2021 is already out of date.
If you want to see which of these fast-growing systems already overlap with your own institution's strengths, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices. Comment or DM me, or have a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
University research published in 2025 acknowledged 30,877 distinct funders, up from 27,694 in 2021.
Most of that growth sits in the long tail. Only 484 funders appear on 1,000 or more university outputs a year, while nearly four in five appear on fewer than 50. For a research office, that tail is where unseen opportunity tends to be: foundations, charities, industry partners and international programmes that rarely surface when funding intelligence starts and ends with the major national agencies.
If you would like to see which of those smaller funders already back work at your own institution, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices. Comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Across 277 funders with 5,000+ funded outputs in 2023-2025, the share of work reaching the world's top 10% most-cited ranges from 8% to 54%.
The median funder sits at 29%. Portfolio size explains almost none of that spread: the correlation between a funder's volume and its top-decile share is -0.03, and the largest funder in the corpus sits just below the median. For a research office, that reframes funder strategy - which schemes you pursue shapes your citation profile far more than how big those funders are.
Curious where your own funding mix sits in this spread? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices - comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Across 9,903 universities with 200+ outputs in 2023-2025, average field-weighted citation impact rises from 0.71 where under 10% of output is internationally co-authored to 3.29 at 60-70%.
Scale matters far less: a university publishing 200-999 works with 60%+ international co-authorship averages 2.69 - ahead of one publishing 5,000+ works with under 20% international, at 1.46. The gradient holds inside every size band, so this is not simply big institutions collaborating more. Partnership strategy looks like a stronger impact lever than output growth.
Curious where your own collaboration mix sits on this curve? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices - comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Funder-acknowledged engineering output grew 41% between 2021 and 2025, while health sciences grew 5%.
Across 15,410 funders, engineering moved ahead of health sciences in funded output in 2025 — a reversal of the 2021 position. The gap isn't just volume: total university output rose 24% in engineering and 14% in health sciences. So engineering is attracting funding faster than it publishes, while health sciences publishes faster than it attracts funding. If your portfolio leans to health sciences, competitive pressure per grant is rising even where output looks strong.
Want to see how your own divisions split on this? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
In 2025, 21% of global university output in arts and humanities carries a December publication date — against 9% for an even spread across the year.
Engineering's December runs just 1.15× a normal month; arts and humanities runs 2.6×.
This matters if you report monthly output. A December spike is mostly your discipline mix and your publishers' issue calendars, not a productivity surge — and a census date in late November will systematically undercount your humanities faculty.
Curious where your own discipline mix puts your monthly curve? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or have a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Only 34.6% of university research output published in 2025 names a funder in its publication metadata.
Across 5.21 million outputs from education institutions, 1.8 million carry a machine-readable acknowledgement — and that share has barely moved in five years, from 33.9% in 2021.
For a research office this matters when you report funded-research volume from bibliometric sources. Those counts are a floor, not a total. Your grants system knows about awards the publication record never mentions, and reconciling the two is usually where the missing third turns up.
If you want to see the funder-coverage rate on your own institution's output, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment below or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
64% of universities sit below the sector-average rate for international co-authorship.
Across 9,903 education institutions and 26.1 million attributed outputs from 2023 to 2025, the volume-weighted sector figure is 37.0% — but the median institution sits at 29.1%. The average is lifted by a small number of very large producers, so a research office comparing itself to "the sector" will usually conclude it is behind when it is simply typical. Percentile position is the more defensible number to put in front of an executive or a council.
If you want to see where your own institution lands on this curve, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Across 905 funders that backed 500+ university outputs in 2024, the 50 largest placed 33.9% of that work in the world's top 10% most-cited.
Every other tier of 50 funders landed between 31% and 36%.
Funder scale says little about the impact of the work it supports. The spread sits inside each tier — among funders of similar size, top-10% share runs from about 22% to 42%. For a research office, that argues against ranking targets by budget: what matters is how a funder's existing portfolio performs in your disciplines.
If you want this cut for the funders on your target list, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Engineering's share of global university research output rose from 15.8% to 17.6% between 2021 and 2024 — an 18.6% jump in volume against a sector that grew 7.1% overall.
Three of seven discipline groups outpaced the sector; arts and humanities published less in 2024 than in 2021. If your own output has been flat, the question is less whether you are growing than whether your mix sits where the growth is — a portfolio weighted to slower divisions reads as underperformance in any national benchmark, even when every unit is doing fine.
Curious where your own disciplinary mix sits against that shift? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
In 2024, arts and humanities output peaked in June at 30% above a typical month.
In life sciences, the same month was up 2%. Publication timing isn't a shared calendar — it's a property of each discipline's journal cycle, and humanities, social science and business titles bunch their issues into June and December. If your quarterly reporting to deans compares Q2 against Q1 without adjusting for discipline mix, a humanities-heavy faculty will look like it is surging and a lab-based one like it is stalling. Neither is doing anything different.
Curious how your own discipline mix shapes your quarterly numbers? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Across 55 countries with at least 50,000 university outputs between 2022 and 2024, not one of the ten largest producers appears in the top ten for average field-weighted citation impact.
Hong Kong ranks first on impact and 31st on volume; China and the US, first and second by output, sit 25th and 31st. The rank correlation between the two measures is slightly negative. For a research office, that is the case against volume targets: scale and influence are separate levers, and the benchmark you pick decides which strategy looks like it is working.
Curious where your institution sits on the same volume-versus-impact split? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Across 8,003 universities that published 100+ works in 2024, average field-weighted citation impact rises from 1.06 to 3.47 as international co-authorship increases.
Across 8,003 universities that published 100+ works in 2024, average field-weighted citation impact rises from 1.06 where under 15% of output has an international co-author to 3.47 where it's above 75% — a 3.3x spread, climbing at every band in between. The median university sits at 33%. For a research office that reframes internationalisation from a reputational nicety into the strongest steerable correlate of citation performance in this data: partnership strategy, mobility schemes and co-funded calls move it, discipline mix largely doesn't.
Curious where your institution falls on that curve? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
In 2024, 53.9% of university-affiliated researchers who published anything published exactly one paper.
Those 4.0 million people account for just 18.5% of output, while 83,567 researchers — 1.1% of the population — produced 14.2%.
For a research office this reframes what "our researchers" means. Most names on an annual publication list are not repeat publishers: doctoral students finishing up, clinicians, occasional collaborators. Support models and internal metrics built around a stable core will miss over half the people who appeared in the record that year.
Curious how that one-paper share looks at your own institution? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Across 2022-2024, universities worldwide published 23% more research per day in June than in August.
The June spike is global; the August dip is not. France publishes 22% below its own annual pace in August and Spain 19%, while China shows no dip at all. That rhythm tracks national academic calendars and publisher schedules, not research capacity. Benchmark monthly or by quarter against an international peer set and Q3 reads as a Western European slump, Q2 as a global surge. Neither is performance.
Want to see your own institution's monthly curve against a peer group? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
In 2024, 76% of university research output carried at least one external partner institution.
And cross-border partnerships (38.8%) now edge out domestic ones (37.7%). The in-house paper is now the exception. For a research office that changes the job: most of your output is governed by agreements you co-signed, credit you share and compliance regimes you only partly control. The split is uneven, though. Health Sciences runs 86% partnered; Arts and Humanities only 44%. A single collaboration target across every faculty will flatter some departments and quietly penalise others.
Curious where your own faculties sit on that partnered-versus-in-house split? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment below or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
In 2024 the four largest university research systems produced 48% of the world's published output but recorded an international co-author on just 27% of it.
In 2024 the four largest university research systems — China, the US, India and Indonesia — produced 48% of the world's published output but recorded an international co-author on just 27% of it. The median across 46 national systems was 49%.
Scale and openness are not the same thing. For a research office this reframes benchmarking: a global average is pulled down by a few very large, largely domestic systems, so similar-sized peers are the fairer comparison.
Want to see where your institution sits against comparable systems rather than a global mean? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or visit https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
In 2024, the median university published 32.6% of its output with an international co-author.
The sector-wide figure is 38.8%, pulled up by the largest producers, and the middle half of institutions spans 21.6% to 48.3%. That gap matters when a sector average becomes an internal target: half of universities sit below 33%, so an office benchmarking against 39% is chasing a number no typical institution posts. Scale and discipline mix drive most of the spread, making size-matched peers the fairer comparison.
If you want to see where your own institution falls in that distribution, and how it shifts by discipline, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Three of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals account for 43% of all SDG-mapped research output published between 2022 and 2024.
Good Health and Well-being alone takes 23%. Climate Action sits 14th of 17, at 3.1% — behind Life Below Water and Life on Land.
That matters when you are benchmarked on SDG volume. The classification base is overwhelmingly health, energy and education research, so a climate-led institution can look thin next to a medical school without producing less. Worth knowing which denominator your ranking submission is competing in.
If you want the same 17-goal split for your own institution, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices — drop a comment or DM me, or start at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
In 2024, four of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals absorbed 52% of all SDG-linked university research output.
Good Health alone took 20% — nearly four times the combined output of No Poverty, Partnerships and Responsible Consumption.
For a research office, this is the gap between an SDG portfolio and an SDG strategy. Most SDG profiles are a by-product of where medical and agricultural strength already sits, rather than a deliberate choice. The thinnest-covered goals are also where a mid-sized university can still be visible.
If you want to see how your institution's SDG mix compares with this global distribution, we run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Only 39% of research carries a funder acknowledgement
Only 39% of university research published in 2024 carries a funder acknowledgement in its metadata. The other 5.5 million outputs name no funder at all, and that share has not moved since 2021.
The gap is national rather than disciplinary: Korean and Chinese universities record a funder on about 61% of output, the UK 49%, the US 44%, India 17%, Indonesia 6%. If your funded-output reporting rests on this metadata, you are undercounting your own grant returns, and any international benchmark is partly measuring acknowledgement practice rather than funding.
Worth knowing your own acknowledgement rate before the next impact return. We run free Connect51 trials for research offices, so comment or DM me, or take a look at https://www.connect51.com
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Latest insight
Across 2024, 35% of university Arts and Humanities output carries a January or December publication date.
In Health Sciences it is 22%. An even spread would put both near 17%.
That gap is metadata convention, not a year-end rush: year-only and issue-only dates default to the year boundary, and humanities journals use them far more. If your office runs a census date or annual return off publication date, you are mis-timing humanities output against STEM.
Want to see how your own disciplinary mix skews date-based reporting? We run free Connect51 trials for research offices — comment or DM me, or visit https://www.connect51.com
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Danielle SwanepoelExecutive Director of International Relations and Strategic InitiativesMason Korea
