To the 70th anniversary of the journal Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. News from biologists

On September 2016, Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta (Herald of Moscow University) marks 70 years from date of publication of its first issue. Our edition is rightfully considered to be one of the oldest college scientific journals in Russia. Today, Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta is represented by 27 individual journals (Series), among which is Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta, Seriya 16: Biologiya (English-language edition is Moscow University Biological Sciences Bulletin). The structure of the journal has changed many times throughout its lifetime. Independent series appeared, and their format was changed; later, translated versions were issued. These journals published mainly articles written by our colleagues and graduate students, providing the world scientific community with information about achievements and successes of scientists in the Lomonosov Moscow State University. Recently, however, the situation has begun to change dramatically with the emergence of a huge number of “competitors” (the number of scientific journals has increased many times in a few decades) and the growing importance of global citation systems. Almost all scientific editions are forced to keep up with the times and take into account the demands placed upon them by standards established, in particular, by such giants in the field of scientometric indexing as Scopus and Web of Science. According to global practice, scientific publications that meet specified requirements are mainly taken into account in allocation of research grants. Although this approach cannot be justified completely, it is impossible to ignore this fact now. In 2014, Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta, Seriya 16: Biologiya won the contest for the state support of development programs and promotion of Russian scientific journals into international scientific and information space, organized by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and the National Electronic Information Consortium (NEICON). Outrunning over 500 competitors, the journal became one of two winners in the “Biology” section and received financial support for 3 years. According to the terms of the award, we had to undertake a number of reforms in our edition that are generally in line with the above requirements of global citation systems.