ArticleResearch integrity and peer review2026
Most science is published from countries lacking in democracy and freedom of press.
Article in Research integrity and peer review, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Improving Scientific Research: Renegotiated Principles of Science, Proposals, Failures, and Successes.European journal of clinical investigation · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDemocracy and freedom of press may affect how science is prioritized, produced, communicated and disseminated. We aimed to map the production of scientific publications worldwide in terms of democracy and freedom of press ratings of countries.
methodsThis is a bibliometric study cross-linking global bibliometric data with democracy ratings and freedom of the press indices for countries around the world. Democracy ratings used the Democracy Index in 2024 and in 2006 (when first released by the Economist Intelligence Unit) and Freedom of Press ratings used the 2024 index by Reports Without Borders. The Scopus database was used for publications from each country. Fractional counts were assigned for publications co-authored by authors from different countries. Full articles, reviews, conference papers, books and book chapters were included.
resultsIn 2024, countries characterized as full democracies produced only 22% (915,102/4,185,853) of the Scopus-indexed publications, versus 66% (1,157,842/1,757,310) in 2006. There was no correlation between the ratio of publications indexed in 2024 versus 2006 and the absolute or relative change in Democracy Index between 2006 and 2024 (r = 0.02 and r = 0.00, respectively). 78% of publications in 2024 (3,255,770/4,187,136) came from countries with problematic (including USA) or worse (including China) rating for freedom of press. Proportions of publications originating from countries with problematic or worse situations were 81% (n = 3,374,348), 91% (n = 3,820,811), 61% (n = 2,537,962), 62% (n = 2,608,802), and 63% (n = 2,650,819) for political, economic, legislative, sociocultural, and safety/security dimensions, respectively. Results were similar when limited to articles published in 2024 in journals with continuous annual presence in Scopus during 2006-2024. 87.1% (1,489/1,710) of the highly cited papers published in 2024 (with 150 or more Scopus citations by November 23, 2025) have at least one author from a country that is not full democracy and 98.8% (1,690/1,710) of these highly cited papers have at least one author from a country that does not have good freedom of press.
conclusionsMost published science originates from countries struggling or suffering in democracy and/or freedom of press. The deeper causes and implications of this emerging landscape require further study.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.