Analyzing Characteristics of ESI Discipline Distribution in China, U.S. and U.K. with Sub-Disciplines and Text Contents

[Objective] This paper examines the highly cited papers from ESI, aiming to identify the characteristics of their discipline distributions in China, the United States and the United Kingdom. [Methods] First, we merged the sub-disciplines and text contents based on the general framework of biodiversity. Then, we constructed three indicators of discipline variety, discipline balance and discipline disparity. Finally, we analyzed the changing of indicators over a five-year-period. [Results] There is a gap between China and the United States or the United Kingdom in the diversity of Social Sciences and Biomedical Sciences, in the balance of Engineering, Mathematics, as well as Environment & Ecology, and in the disparity of Computer Sciences, Geosciences, Botanic and Animal Sciences. However, some indicators showed an upward trend. [Limitations] More research is needed to examine the threshold of discipline coverages, as well as the contribution differences due to the order of authors’nationalities. [Conclusions] Our study finds the differences between China, the United States or the United Kingdom in the distribution of research disciplines, which benefits discipline evaluation and future developments.