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A few intranational studies have attempted to figure out whether motherhood may be driving gender differences in academic productivity, but there’s still no scientific consensus on this highly debated topic.

So Baccini, De Nicolao, and their team set out to develop an indicator of inwardness, which measures both self-referential and intranational citations.

By 2016, about 31% of the Italy’s citations came from authors within its borders—more than any other country except the United States, a research powerhouse where many intranational citations are expected.

These intranational citations could reveal “citation clubs,” a subtle form of manipulation in which groups of scientists cite each other to boost their citation scores, Baccini says.

Take, for example, a paper co-authored by research collaborators in Italy and France: Any citation to this paper from an Italian- or French-authored publication will count as an intranational citation for both Italy and France.