Regional service, global recognition: international benchmarking for the research publications of Australia’s Natural History Museums, 1981-2020

Australia's natural history museums, in common with similar institutions globally, face budget scrutiny. Research, which is less visible to the public than exhibitions, is vulnerable. To provide context to discussions of the value of museum research, we used citation analysis to explore how research publications of Australian Natural History Museum (ANHM) staff were used nationally and internationally, based on 9,923 relevant documents from 1981–2020. We identified the 50 most highly cited documents (Top 50), noting for each: number of citations, Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI), number of authors, length in pages, subject area classifications and keywords, Open Access (OA) availability, collaboration within and outside Australia as revealed by authors’ affiliations and, to indicate national relevance, whether either ‘Australia’ or ‘Australian’ appeared in the title. For documents not included in the Top 50 we determined length, number of authors, OA availability, whether there were international authors, and whether the words ‘Australia’ or ‘Australian’ appeared in the title. We also calculated mean FWCI for all documents in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 and benchmarked these against the international mean of 1 for FWCI. The Top 50 list documents had a high mean citation of 654 (range 329 – 2,055) with a mean FWCI of 13.4 (range 1.35 – 79.6), exceeding the world average of 1. Compared to other ANHM documents they had similar length, but more authors/document and greater international collaboration. Top 50 documents were also more likely to be available OA and less likely to include ‘Australia’ or ‘Australian’ in the title. ANHM documents outside the Top 50 had a mean FWCI between 1.0 and 1.3 in each of the five years examined, equalling or exceeding the world average of 1. We complemented citation analysis with descriptions of nine case studies of use of ANHM research other than citation, illustrating how the research assisted environmental policy and management by national and international government agencies, liaisons with Australian natural history societies with both academic and lay members, and education. Overall, ANHM research documents serve regional Australian interests, while often having international relevance.