Factors Influencing International Publication Outcomes in the Sciences and the Humanities and Social Sciences: A Case Study of Mahasarakham University

Abstract

This research aims to examine the factors influencing academic publication outcomes indexed in Scopus and to compare how these factors differ between the sciences and the humanities and social sciences at Mahasarakham University. The study employs a quantitative approach using secondary panel data at the faculty level, covering 18 faculties across fiscal years 2021–2025. Descriptive statistics and panel regression models are applied to explain the relationship between institutional resources/educational management structures and the number of Scopus-indexed publications. Descriptive results indicate that science-related faculties produce a substantially higher average number of Scopus publications than faculties in the humanities and social sciences. The econometric estimation further shows that the number of graduate students, total faculty budget, and publication reward incentives are positively and statistically significantly associated with the number of Scopus-indexed articles. In contrast, dedicated research support funding and the student-to-faculty ratio do not demonstrate statistically significant relationships in the main model. These findings suggest that policies to enhance publication performance should be tailored to the characteristics of each disciplinary cluster, with particular emphasis on strengthening graduate education, allocating budgets that directly facilitate research production, and implementing incentive systems closely linked to publication outputs. In addition, the university should develop research mentoring mechanisms, expand collaborative networks, and establish faculty-level monitoring and evaluation processes to ensure that support measures yield more tangible and sustained results over the long term.