Unlocking Scholarly Realms: Revealing Discipline-Specific Publication and Citation Benefits in Open Access

This bibliometric analysis examines research publications from Israel, Austria, and Mexico (2010–2020) using Scopus data. The selection of Austria and Mexico as comparators to Israel was based on SCImago rankings. Top four disciplines were chosen for Health, Physical, and Life Sciences (HPL) and Social and Humanities Sciences (SSH). The findings indicate a distinct preference for closed-access publications; however, a clear ‘open access citation advantage’ emerges nonetheless. Notably, Israel has the lowest SSH publications in open access, yet the highest in closed access. Conversely, open-access HPL publications receive more citations than closed access across all countries. Despite fewer open-access articles, Israel's HPL research surpasses Austria in citations. In SSH, Israel, and Austria's open-access articles attract more citations, while Mexico shows no significant difference. These findings provide insights into publication dynamics, disciplinary influences, and citation patterns.