Why does the UK produce so many research papers? I was taking a look at Scimago Journal &amp; Country Rank.



Is there any specific reason why UK produces way more research paper than that of Germany and Japan?

Note. kindly, don't bring up futile arguments like population doesn't really matter in case of research paper publication (e.g. India), etc.
It is very common for academics to not live and work in the country of their birth, and I would assume that this becomes the more common the more research active they are. Many of the publications from British universities will not have been written by British (born) scientists.

Instead, we see stable loops of the following type:

University X has a good reputation
-> Productive researchers move to X
  -> a lot research gets done and published at X
    -> the reputation of X is good

The UK is home to many very prestigious universities, is not subject to language barriers and has mostly avoided historical disruptions to its research activity.