Peculiarities of publication activity in humanities and social sciences: analysis and prospects

The goal of the paper is to analyze the publication activity as a phenomenon, which has taken the firm position in the academic environment as a criterion of assessing the professional efficiency of the university academic staff. The authors consider the peculiarities of humanities and social sciences in comparison with technical and natural sciences from the point of initial possibilities to increase the rate of publication activity and a citation index. In order to have a clear insight of the humanities and social fields, we needed to identify the subject and the object they research and the outcomes they are able to represent as scientific results. The data showed a certain inequality at the start. Social sciences have poor pragmatic influence. They are characterized by targeted and valuable measurements but not by pragmatic parameters. As the main instruments to solve or balance this issue, we discuss the potential value of the following motivation factors as money, career perspectives, and social safeguards, which are able to impact the situation better.