Thematic structure analysis of the top articles of Iranian researchers

Background and aim: Assessing the quality of scientific outputs is part of the development measuring system of countries around the world. The aim of this study was to analyze the thematic structure of the top articles of Iranian researchers in the Web of Science (WoS) database in Web of Science database. Materials and methods: This applied-descriptive study was performed using scientometric method. The research population was all top papers of Iranian researchers indexed in Essential Scientific Indicators (ESI) and WoS databases from 2010 to 2019. Data were analyzed using Ravar Matrix and Ucinet softwares. Findings: Total number of Iranian top articles was 2447 of which 2428 and 114 were highly cited and hot articles published from 2010-2019, respectively. The top ranking of centrality was assigned to the keyword "nanofluid" with a closeness centrality of 53.684, betweenness centrality of 24.229 and degree centrality of 3.020%. Conclusion: The top articles of Iranian researchers were classified into 14 thematic clusters, so that most of these articles were in the field of "engineering" and the keyword "nano" was the most important thematic keyword and the basic foundation of this study.