  The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China, and South Africa) are
noted for their increasing participation in science and technology. The
governments of these countries have been boosting their investments in research
and development to become part of the group of nations doing research at a
world-class level. This study investigates the development of the BRICS
countries in the domain of top-cited papers (top 10% and 1% most frequently
cited papers) between 1990 and 2010. To assess the extent to which these
countries have become important players on the top level, we compare the BRICS
countries with the top-performing countries worldwide. As the analyses of the
(annual) growth rates show, with the exception of Russia, the BRICS countries
have increased their output in terms of most frequently-cited papers at a
higher rate than the top-cited countries worldwide. In a further step of
analysis for this study, we generate co-authorship networks among authors of
highly cited papers for four time points to view changes in BRICS participation
(1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010). Here, the results show that all BRICS countries
succeeded in becoming part of this network, whereby the Chinese collaboration
activities focus on the USA.
