As the benefits of a knowledge-based economy become increasingly apparent around the world, so too does the prominence of inequality in knowledge production. One notable form of this inequality is the categorical difference between publications produced in the Global North versus those in the Global South. Universities as one of the main knowledge infrastructures and their identity being under crisis especially for those in the periphery trying to break into international markets driving isomorphic advantage. In this paper, we propose a conceptual approach to observe the discrepancy between image and identity by comparing university publication outputs between international and national bibliometric databases, with a focus on the representation of different disciplines. This approach highlights pockets of innovation in the natural sciences, as well as the lack of integration into international knowledge production for the social sciences and humanities, which are common characteristics for universities in the periphery.