Thought leadership: A new indicator for national and institutional comparison

This paper introduces a new method for evaluating national publication activities. This new indicator, thought leadership, captures whether the nation is a thought leader (building on the more recently cited literature for that field) or follower (building on the older cited literature for that field). Publication data for 2003 are used to illustrate which nations tend to build on the more recent discoveries in chemistry and clinical medicine. Implications for national and laboratory policy are discussed.