Moskaleva, Olga Vasilyevna

Moskaleva O.V.

The author discusses the challenge of the blocked access for Russian organizations to the Web of Science and Scopus. She examines the core structure of citation indices and their information sources. The author proposes the alternative ways of retrieving academic publications using accessible resources and points to the opportunities to get bibliometrics for scientific activity assessment in the current situation.

Moskaleva O.V., Akoev M.A.

It was investigated whether the geopolitical situation (the Russian-Ukrainian conflict) has an impact on the strategy of choosing scholarly journals by Russian authors, and what it means if it does. The data on publications of the Russian Federation from 2010 to 2023 were analyzed in comparison with other countries. The limitation of the study is a short observation period, two years, comparable to the cycle of preparation of a scientific publication. A study of the thematic focus, the author’s composition, and international cooperation was conducted. The work used data from Scopus, Web of Science, RSCI and CRIS systems. The global impact of the geopolitical situation on the publication indicators has not been revealed, although trends in international cooperation are changing in the long term. Assumptions are made about the greater impact on the number of publications of the decrease in the activity of universities of the 5-100 project, the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the insufficient growth rate of new Russian authors published in Russian journals.

Akoev M., Markusova V., Moskaleva O.

Moskaleva O.V., Akoev M.A.

The article analyzes Russian open access scholarly journals in the context of improving the presentation of the results of scientific research of Russian scientists. The advantages and problems of supporting open access publications are considered, taking into account the analysis of the interests of the stakeholders of scientific publications, examples of state policy for supporting open access publications are presented, and options for adapting the open access model in Russia are formulated. The analysis of the representation of information on the terms of open access for Russian journals is carried out. The citation rate of open access journals was investigated in comparison with the citation rate of traditional subscription publications taking into account the types of open access and the country of the author of the publication. Proposals for adjusting the editorial policy in order to promote Russian journals, improve their quality and accessibility are presented. The final conclusions are made for the entire series of articles devoted to the forecast of the development of Russian journals.

Moskaleva O.

The chapter provides a brief description of the evolution of scholarly journals, research publication databases and citation indexes. Various citation theories and peculiarities of researchpublications in different subject areas, the methods of subject classifications are described anddiscussed.

Moskaleva O.

The chapter describes methods of evaluation of scholarly journals and research activities ofscientists, organizations and countries based on citation analysis. Peculiarities of research pub-lications in different subject areas are explored, as well as possible approaches to comparativecitation analysis in various research fields. Special attention is paid to altmetrics and to the useof bibliometric indicators for ranking of universities and research institutions.

Akoev M., Markusova V., Moskaleva O., Pislyakov V.

The second edition of Handbook on Scientometrics is designed to provide an overview of the field of scientometrics. The Handbook describes the history of creation of the breakthrough concept of citation indexing by Dr. Eugene Garfield, and development of the first multidisciplinary scholarly citation index, the Science Citation Index. Application of scientometric tools and methods in research management and resource allocation is discussed. Authors survey various scientometric indicators relevant to individual researchers, journals, research institutions and whole countries. Authors explore new types of indicators, such as altmetrics, relationship between scientometric indicators and the nature of scientific communication, and various methods of visualizing scientometric information. Possibilities and limitations of various scientometric techniques are examined. Authors highlight the need for an informed and reasonable approach to the use of quantitative indicators for research assessment. The Handbook includes Russian translations of two research reports by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). The Handbook is intended for use by researchers, science analysts, universities and research institutions administrators, libraries and information centers staff, graduate students, and the general reader interested in scientometrics and research evaluation.

Akoev M., Pislyakov V., Moskaleva O., Markusova V.

Moskaleva O.V., Akoev M.A.

This article examines the system structure of Russian scholarly journal publishers. Bibliometric indicators, composition of authors and some features of editorial and publishing policy by different groups of publishers are analyzed. Proposals are presented on changing the editorial policy and introducing publishing services in order to promote Russian journals and improve their quality.

Mzhelsky A.A., Moskaleva O.V.

Although more than 60 known factors appear to affect article citation, almost a third of them are associated with scientific collaboration, which, according to scientometric studies prevails every year in most subject categories. This work is aimed at identifying the reasons behind attracting more citation due to scientificcooperation, analyzing the main trends and showing the position of Russian publications against the foreign ones, as well as presenting the best cases and highlighting opportunities for growth. Since the biomedicine field accounts for more than half of the articles in the world, attracts the highest citation and presents special regulations and initiatives that can change the publishing policy in other subject areas, it is analyzed separately with regards to each factor reviewed.

Akoev M.A., Moskaleva O.V.

This article is the second in a series of articles representing the development forecast of Russian scientific journals. Based on the analysis of the dynamics of many bibliometric indicators of Russian journals presented in the Scopus citation index, a forecast is made for the development of journals by field of science using the OECD classifier. A forecast is made based on the data presented in the first article of this series, combined with the results of the analysis of Russian journals in the Scopus database, a list of journals that can soon replenish the collections of Russian journals in international citation indexes is presented.

Moskaleva O.V., Akoev M.A.

This article is the first in a series of articles representing the development forecast of Russian scientific journals. Based on the analysis of the dynamics of many bibliometric indicators of Russian journals presented in various databases on the Web of Science platform, a forecast is made for the development of journals by field of science using the OECD classifier. Proposals are made on the necessary measures to increase the bibliometric indicators of Russian journals in the natural sciences, forecast of increasing the number of Russian journals in Social Sciences and Humanities in the Web of Science Core Collection is presented.

Moskaleva O.V., Akoev M.A.

The article describes briefly the history od scientometrics and practical issues of research evaluation by bibliometric indicators in Russian Federation. The special attention is paid for main problems of of using specific bibliometric indicators and errors in their use. Possible options for the use of bibliometric indicators, taking into account international experience, are proposed.

Moskaleva O.V.

The author analyze Russian journals indexed in Web of Science Core Collection and their bibliometric indicators of new issue of Journal Citation Reports (JCR-2017). The indicators used in Journal Citation Reports are described including the methodology changes in new release. The reasons of relatively low ranking of Russian journals are discussed and the ways for development of national journals are proposed.

Moskaleva O., Pislyakov V., Akoev M., Sterligov I., Shabanova S.

In early 2016 a new database was launched on the Web of Science platform — Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI). The database is free to all Web of Science subscribers except those from the post-Soviet states. This database includes papers from 652 selected Russian journals and is based on the data from national citation index — Russian Index of Science Citation (RISC). RISC was launched in 2005 but it is scarcely known to the English-language audience. The paper describes the history, current structure and user possibilities of RISC. We focus on the novel features of RISC which are crucial to bibliometrics and are unavailable in the international citation indexes.

Blaginin V.A., Sokolova E.V.

The present study is dedicated to the development of scientometric tools for the strategic advancement of a scientific periodical, exemplified by the journal of the Ural State University of Economics, “Digital Models and Solutions”. The research involved a compre hensive analysis of the publication activity and thematic profile of this journal, as well as a general statistical examination of Russian academic journals indexed in the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) that pertain to the upper echelon of the State Rubricator of Scientific and Technical Information category “Informatics”. Primary data collection was conducted using the platforms elibrary.ru, CyberLeninka and CrossRef. The data analysis and visuali zation were performed utilizing the R programming language. The construction of thematic networks was carried out using the VOSviewer software, while additional visualization of certain results was executed using Scimago Graphica. The findings of the study identify the current positioning of the journal “Digital Models and Solutions” among scientific publi cations in informatics, define target scientometric indicators for its prospective growth, and propose specific recommendations for the strategic development of the journal, aimed at enhancing its competitiveness and scholarly impact.

Elizarov A.M., Pislyakov V.V.

   Using a commonly agreed definition of the journal impact factor, its various applications in the mathematical modeling of scientific research were investigated. Special attention was paid to the impact factor’s properties related to the disciplinary structure of science, the limitations of source data in existing databases, statistical reliability, the relevance of document types, and the effect of outliers. The potential bias resulting from journal self-citation practices was discussed.

Karikh R.D.

The concept of open science, which is primarily a fight for free access to scientific knowledge, continues to gain support in the world. One of the goals of the concept is to solve the problems of developing countries and reduce inequality. This essay questions the feasibility of this goal. Presenting science as a world-system, the author describes its current structure in the format of academic colonialism, where the countries of the global North, located in the center of the world-system, dominate the countries of the global South, located closer to the periphery. The consequence of this model is epistemic injustice, which can be corrected in the context of open science. However, modern neoliberal trends in the form of platform capitalism do not allow us to cope with this problem within the framework of the concept in its current form, but only increase the risks of growing. The essay proposes possible solutions for the implementation of open science in Russia in an inclusive form based on the concept of bibliodiversity.

Кочетков Д.

В условиях современных вызовов, стоящих перед российской наукой, формирование науковедения как интегрированного научного направления приобретает особую актуальность. Цель данного исследования — определить контуры развития российского науковедения на современном этапе, основываясь на результатах сравнительно-исторического анализа предметной области. В ходе анализа автор рассматривает науковедение как трансдисциплинарную область, которая изучает универсальные закономерности производства научного знания и научно-технологического развития с использованием методов, возникших в различных дисциплинах, и в их взаимосвязи с социальным, экономическим, политическим, культурно-историческим и природным контекстом. Исследование выявило три ключевые проблемы современного российского науковедения: 1) дивергенция российской и мировой исследовательской повестки в области науковедения; 2) разрыв между академическим науковедением и процессом принятия решений в области научно-технической политики; 3) отсутствие науковедения как направления в системе специальностей и направлений подготовки высшего образования и научных специальностей. Ключевым фактором успеха является постепенное преодоление дисциплинарных границ в рамках науковедения как единого научного направления. Первым шагом в этом направлении должно стать включение науковедения в номенклатуру научных специальностей, перечень специальностей и направлений подготовки высшего образования, а также разработка единого теоретико-методологического инструментария и создание междисциплинарных координационных механизмов. Трансдисциплинарность является основным инструментом для достижения этой цели.

Mazov N.A., Gureyev V.N., Ilicheva I.Y.

Current limitations of access to some international journal platforms and bibliographic systems for Russian researchers result in increased role of national journals for communication and knowledge spreading both at domestic and international levels. Consequently, correct information on Russian journals indexation in various bibliographic systems including underestimated open access databases seems to be topical. The analyzed sample includes journals published by Russian universities as the less studied ones compared to serials published by research institutes. We studied journals published by three types of Russian universities, i.e. Federal, National Research and Basic. Rapid increase in the number of new journals in recent years is demonstrated caused by financial support under different programs. Indexing of journals in Web of Science, Scopus, Dimensions and Lens was studied over a period of 2018–2022. In the Dimensions and Lens we also studied the completeness of indexing as these databases index content using other approaches as compared to Web of Science and Scopus. A share of journals indexed by authoritative Russian journal lists Russian Science Citation Index and White List was revealed. The best positions were detected among journals published by National Research universities. However, Basic universities demonstrate positive growth, as well. The obtained results enabled us to conclude that journals published by Russian universities can be regarded as significant strategic information resource for representing Russian research results to international community.

Gureyev V.N., Kurmysheva L.K., Mazov N.A.

This paper presents the results of academic papers that studied Russian academic journals between 2014 and 2024. Problems of the effective development of journals have been discussed intensively for the last 2 years. This is caused mainly by information restrictions, resulting in increased interest in Russian academic journals as viewed from authors, readers (who have partly lost access to international literature), and decision makers in the area of research evaluation. At the same time, the persistent efforts of the expert community in developing journals and increasing their authority in international information space in the last decade have demonstrated high results. This review reveals the main directions of studies of Russian academic journals, as well as highlights those that need to be investigated in the near future. We describe the role and opportunities of academic journals in relation to their bibliometric evaluation, the urgent concerns of peer-review, ethical questions in preparing manuscripts, and the role of university journals in the general group of Russian serials. Concurrently, we detect some technical problems affecting electronic journal systems and the digitization of paper-based archive issues.

Anisimov I.V., Makeenko M.I., Trishchenko N.D.

Abstract—The lists of references in articles written by Russian media researchers published in 2017–2021 in journals indexed in Web of Science (2011 articles in total) were analyzed. The research reveals the existence of several source citation models used by Russian authors at different academic organizations. These models are hypothetical, and their combination describes the source selection models used by Russian media researchers. The differences detected in practices might indicate the absence of any standards within the community. That being said, the indicators of mutual and self-citation among representatives of leading academic organizations show that the community is closely interconnected and has a clear center of four organizations and a periphery of regional universities.

Maltseva D., Pavlova I., Kapustina L., Vashchenko V., Fiala D.

This article presents a comparative analysis of two major scientific publication databases: Web of Science Core Collection and eLibrary – to identify their differences and unique opportunities for exploration of bibliographic networks of Russian scientific authors. Current shortage of tools and approaches for collection, processing and analysis of bibliographic data in the Russian language constitutes the relevance of this study. Empirical analysis is based on comparison of respective arrays of scientific publications in the field of sociology over the period of 2010-2021. We propose a set of comparison criteria including those related to the procedure of data access, quality of data management, quantitative and qualitative features of the data. Inspection of the databases based on the proposed criteria aids in identification of intersections between both the collections and the respective qualitative observations about them. We make conclusions regarding the comparative advantages and weaknesses of both databases in regards to their potential as the sole data source for bibliographic studies, and make recommendations for their effective use in research on Russian science.

Yanochkina Y.

Open access (OA) to publications has been a global trend in publishing academic journals for a long time. The number of OA journals, including Russian ones, is growing steadily. The purpose of this study was to determine the main trends in the implementation of open access publishing models in Russian research journals. The article presents the results of a study of 396 journals included in the Russian Science Citation Index database: title of a journal; website address; international classification code (OECD group); quartile; Science Index indicator; open access model; license type; section of a journal’s website that contains information about the absence or presence and amount of an article processing charge (APC). It is concluded that the majority of journals implement Bronze OA which, firstly, does not comply with the key principles of open access, because it does not use open licenses, and, secondly, does not provide any guarantees that open access will continue to be open. The lack of accessible and transparent information about the conditions for further use of publications can create serious legal issues for the licensee. In turn, it will most likely be a problem for authors to calculate the amount of publication fee.

Tayebi A., Teimouri S.

Scholars in the social sciences and humanities play a crucial role in shaping political discourse by conducting research, teaching, and engaging the public. Therefore, autocratic regimes frequently impose restrictions and surveillance on social scientists’ and humanists’ scholarly and teaching activities to ensure alignment with the regime’s political interests. Our study explores how reducing such restrictions, as expected by a transition to democracy (democratization), influences academic knowledge creation and dissemination in these fields. We also investigate if the impact of democratization differs for the STEM fields that tend to benefit from preexisting academic freedom. Using data from SCImago (Scimago journal & country rank, 2021. https://www.scimagojr.com ), we use the total number of published documents as knowledge formation and average citations per document as knowledge dissemination metrics across 149 countries from 1996 to 2018. Drawing on the Episodes of the Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset, we find that democratization significantly increases citations per document in the social sciences and humanities, though the results are less robust for the humanities. There is no statistically significant change in the volume of published documents post-democratization in either field, possibly due to the limitations of our metric in capturing non-traditional contributions. This limitation is particularly pronounced in the humanities, where books, rather than articles, serve as the primary scholarly output. Therefore, they fall outside the scope of our knowledge creation metrics, leading to an underestimation of democratization’s impact. We do not find any effect of democratization on our knowledge creation or dissemination metrics in the STEM fields. Our results withstand various checks, including an instrumental variable approach to address potential endogeneity in democratization periods.

Zhang X., Wang P.

Unethical research practices are prevalent in China, but little research has focused on the causes of these practices. Drawing on the criminology literature on organisational deviance, as well as the concept of cengceng jiama, which illustrates the increase of pressure in the process of policy implementation within a top-down bureaucratic hierarchy, this article develops an institutional analysis of research misconduct in Chinese universities. It examines both universities and the policy environment of Chinese universities as contexts for research misconduct. Specifically, this article focuses on China’s Double First-Class University Initiative and its impact on elite universities that respond to the policy by generating new incentive structures to promote research quality and productivity as well as granting faculties and departments greater flexibility in terms of setting high promotion criteria concerning research productivity. This generates enormous institutional tensions and strains, encouraging and sometimes even compelling individual researchers who wish to survive to decouple their daily research activities from ethical research norms. This article is written based on empirical data collected from three elite universities as well as a review of policy documents, universities’ internal documents, and news articles.

Yanochkina Y.V.

In the circumstances of transforming institution of intellectual property, the journals have to find balance between the open science initiatives and legal regulations. The purpose of the study is to define whether Russian academic journals conform to open science initiatives and, in particular, to the open access principles and open licensing terms. The author discusses the findings of the study encompassing 450 journals in the Russian Science Citation Index database (as of December 1, 2022) using the following criteria: journal allocation site, archive depth, access principle, license terms and the website section on licensing terms. Based on the obtained data systematization and analysis, the trends for Russian academic journals are formulated: in general, they are ready for introducing open access principles. By choosing open licensing, most of the Russian academic journals are ready to offer maximum freedom in using their publications. The author developed several recommendations for the journals as the sites of scientific data exchange, and for the researchers as the users, generators and disseminators of these data.

Milman B.L., Zhurkovich I.K.

A cluster analysis of the 100 most cited scientific papers on bibliometrics (scientometrics and informetrics) is carried out. The main bibliometric methods are identified, which make it possible to distinguish between the subject areas of their application. Co-citation of scientific papers and co-citation of their authors are still common. The analysis of scientific vocabulary (co-occurrence of words) complements the noted techniques. More often, in recent years, a set of bibliometric methods is used as a result of the application of modern computer programs to the statistical processing of bibliographic data. The fields of development and the application of bibliometrics related to separate clusters include nonmatching groups of various research topics in combination with different bibliometric methods. The use of bibliometrics in soft science (such as the social sciences) research is widespread, and in recent years it has not come at an inferior rate to its more traditional use in the natural sciences. The statistics on documents, references, and other indicators, to some extent, form the soft sciences themselves and delineate the areas of relevant studies.

Shorin O.N.

The main means of providing access to the results of scientific research are considered. The reasons for the unavailability of scientific publications to scientists are analyzed, the process of the formation of the idea of open access is described, and the current state of affairs regarding the publication of scientists’ achievements in open access is reviewed. The study analyzes statistics that clearly demonstrate the main trends in the field of scientific communications on a global scale.

Guba K.S., Tsivinskaya A.O.

AbstractThe past decade has seen extensive research carried out on the systematic causes of research misconduct. Simultaneously, less attention has been paid to the variation in academic misconduct between research fields, as most empirical studies focus on one particular discipline. We propose that academic discipline is one of several systematic factors that might contribute to academic misbehavior. Drawing on a neo-institutional approach, we argue that in the developing countries, the norm of textual originality has not drawn equal support across different research fields depending on its level of internationalization. Using plagiarism detection software, we analyzed 2,405 doctoral dissertations randomly selected from all dissertations defended in Russia between 2007 and 2015. We measured the globalization of each academic discipline by calculating the share of publications indexed in the global citation database in relation to overall output. Our results showed that, with an average share of detected borrowings of over 19%, the incidence of plagiarism in Russia is remarkably higher than in Western countries. Overall, disciplines closely follow the pattern of higher globalization associated with a lower percentage of borrowed text. We also found that plagiarism is less prevalent at research-oriented institutions supporting global ethical standards. Our findings suggest that it might be misleading to measure the prevalence of academic misconduct in developing countries without paying attention to variations at the disciplinary level.

Zhang L., Cao Z., Sivertsen G., Kochetkov D.

AbstractWe study the possible influences of the Russia-Ukraine War on Russia’s research productivity and international collaboration in science. For this purpose, we introduce and apply two recently developed indicators of relative intensity and balance in international collaboration. To see whether longitudinal trends have changed recently, we combine a long-term perspective based on annual updates since the year 2000 with a short-term perspective based on monthly updates since the beginning of 2022. The clearest change is that the productivity of Russian science, as measured within Web of Science, has dramatically decreased after several years of growth. There is also a clear decline in the degree of international collaboration in fields of research that heavily rely on large multinational infrastructures established through state agreements. In other fields, however, the degree of international collaboration is more stable. The general decline in Russian science seems to be more driven by internal factors than by loss of partnerships abroad.

de Rassenfosse G., Murovana T., Uhlbach W.

AbstractThe ongoing war in Ukraine has profoundly impacted the Ukrainian scientific community. Numerous researchers have either emigrated or transitioned to alternate professions. For those who remain in research, the destruction of civil infrastructure and psychological stress may dramatically slow down research progress. There is limited knowledge concerning the war’s influence on Ukrainian research. This study presents the results of a representative survey of over 2500 Ukrainian scientists. The data suggest that by the Fall of 2022, about 18.5% of the population of Ukrainian scientists fled the country. Notably, these emigrant scientists were amongst the most research-active in Ukraine. However, a significant portion of these migrant scientists are under precarious contracts at their host institutions. Of the scientists who stayed in Ukraine, about 15% have left research, and the others experience a marked reduction in research time. A large number of stayers have lost access to critical input for their research (23.5%) or cannot physically access their institution (20.8%). Finally, should the war stop today, it seems that Ukraine has already lost about seven percent of its scientists. These observations bear significant policy implications. In light of the vulnerable position of migrant scientists, the provision of more and longer scholarships emerges as a paramount concern for this group of scientists. Concerning stayers, institutions across Europe and beyond can offer a host of support programs, such as remote visiting programs, access to digital libraries and computing resources, as well as collaborative research grants.

Damaševičius R., Zailskaitė-Jakštė L.

This paper analyzes the impact of the ongoing war in Ukraine on the productivity and collaboration networks of Ukrainian academics. As a case study, we analyze the publication patterns in open-access MDPI journals using bibliographic analysis methods and compare the research output published in 2022 with research papers published in the three preceding years (2019–2021) with at least one author having an Ukrainian affiliation. A total of 2365 publications were analyzed. The identified publication trends provide an interesting insight into the dynamics of the research network of Ukrainian researchers, which demonstrated a decline in diversity of international collaborations in 2022. The findings of this study emphasize the necessity of international research collaboration in a variety of fields in order to mitigate the detrimental effects of national crises and emergencies.

Shih T., Chubb A., Cooney-O’Donoghue D.

Abstract Significant collaborations with research partners in China are seen in many Western countries. With increasing US-China geopolitical tensions, governments, research institutions, and individuals in established scientific systems are increasingly required to address a proliferating array of risks and challenges associated with collaboration with China. Academic researchers are only beginning to describe how countries are responding to the ongoing need for global scientific collaboration amidst intensifying geopolitical competition. Several studies have examined the securitization of scientific connections with China in the USA, while others have documented developments in nations such as Australia, the UK, and Sweden. However, there is limited comparative research on approaches to international science amid geopolitical tensions. This paper bridges the gap, illuminating the key dimensions of variation in country-level responses by comparing the cases of Sweden and Australia. The questions we ask are as follows: Who responds to the challenges? By what means? And to what ends are responses directed? Swedish government have been largely passive, but Swedish funding agencies have developed “responsible internationalisation” guidelines that aim to induce proactive reflection by institutions and individual researchers. Australia’s approach, by contrast, has centred on legislation, the exercise of ministerial powers, along with sector-wide enactment of expanded due diligence protocols. The comparison highlights key differences in the actors, methods and goals of responses to the intensifying geopolitics of scientific collaboration.

Makkonen T., Mitze T.

Sterligov I.A.

This study provides detailed information on the number and structure of foreign-authored academic works published in 590 Russian periodicals in 2000–2021 (~90 000 articles and reviews). A range of scientometric indicators is provided together with data on the language of manuscripts submitted to the journals. A complex dynamic pattern of changes in the representation of publications from main groups of countries is described and discussed. An extremely low citation rate and low share of foreign-authored works is found for most subject domains and periodicals. Various groups of journals are considered as well as the reasons why, in most Russian journals, the share of foreign-authored articles is very low and why, on the contrary, it is quite high in a select few.

Singh V.K., Singh P., Uddin A., Arora P., Bhattacharya S.

Scientific journals are currently the primary medium used by researchers to report their research findings. The transformation of print journals into e-journals during the last two decades has not only simplified the process of submissions to journals but has also increased their access across the world. It is well-known that there are significant differences in the total number of journals indexed from different countries. It is, however, not very concretely known whether the lack of appropriate number of publication venues in a country (including in one or more subject areas) may inhibit its publication propensity in one way or other. This article, therefore, attempts to explore the relationship between the number of journals indexed from a country and its research output. Scopus database is used as reference database and the master journal list of Scopus is analysed to identify number of journals indexed from 50 selected countries, that have significant volume of research output. The publication data for the countries is obtained from Scopus. The following major relationships are observed: (a) number of journals from a country and its research output, (b) growth rate of journals and research output for different countries, (c) global share of journals and research output for different countries, and (d) subject area-wise number of journals and research output in that subject area for different countries. The results show that for majority of the countries, the number of journals indexed is positively correlated to their research output volume. A similar relationship is also observed in the subject area-wise analysis, confirming existence of the positive correlations between number of journals in a subject area and the research output in that subject area. However, several countries do not fully conform to the observed relationship, indicating that there are several other factors driving the research output of a country. The study, at the end, presents a discussion of the outcomes and provides implications for policy perspectives for different countries.

Aviv-Reuven S., Rosenfeld A.

In recent months the COVID-19 (also known as SARS-CoV-2 and Coronavirus) pandemic has spread throughout the world. In parallel, extensive scholarly research regarding various aspects of the pandemic has been published. In this work, we analyse the changes in biomedical publishing patterns due to the pandemic. We study the changes in the volume of publications in both peer reviewed journals and preprint servers, average time to acceptance of papers submitted to biomedical journals, international (co-)authorship of these papers (expressed by diversity and volume), and the possible association between journal metrics and said changes. We study these possible changes using two approaches: a short-term analysis through which changes during the first six months of the outbreak are examined for both COVID-19 related papers and non-COVID-19 related papers; and a longitudinal approach through which changes are examined in comparison to the previous four years. Our results show that the pandemic has so far had a tremendous effect on all examined accounts of scholarly publications: A sharp increase in publication volume has been witnessed and it can be almost entirely attributed to the pandemic; a significantly faster mean time to acceptance for COVID-19 papers is apparent, and it has (partially) come at the expense of non-COVID-19 papers; and a significant reduction in international collaboration for COVID-19 papers has also been identified. As the pandemic continues to spread, these changes may cause a slow down in research in non-COVID-19 biomedical fields and bring about a lower rate of international collaboration.

Björk B.

For more than thirty years the spiralling costs of scholarly journal subscriptions (“the serials crises”) has been a hotly debated topic. Academics and librarians have pointed out the high profit levels of the major commercial publishers, despite the fact that the content is provided by unpaid authors and reviewers, which the publishers then resell to the universities of these same authors and reviewers. Publishers have attempted to justify their prices by cost increases, their IT-investments and the value they add. A useful framework for understanding the prevailing situation is Michael Porter’s five forces framework for explaining the competitive situation in any given industry. Despite claims to the contrary the degree of market concentration in scholarly publishing is not higher than in many other industries, and not the main cause of the problem. But the fact that the big deals of different publishers are complements rather than substitutes, means that essentially the leading companies don’t compete for customers, in contrast to other industries like mobile phones or automobiles. The high barriers to new entrants, partly due to journal ranking lists and impact factors, as well as the low bargaining power of suppliers and customers, explain why this industry has been so well protected from the disruptive forces of the Internet. The protected competitive position and high profitability is also the major reason why the big subscription publishers have been rather slow in adopting the open access business model.

Brainard J.

As a new mandate takes effect, researchers and institutions grapple with the trade-offs of making scientific publications free for all

Lee J.J., Haupt J.P.

Editorial A.

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Lee J.J., Haupt J.P.

This study examined the patterns and nature of science co-publications between the USA and China. Based on a scientometric study of Scopus co-publications over the past 5 years, the results demonstrated a continuous rise of bilateral collaboration between the two countries. Challenging the US political rhetoric and attempts to curb international research engagement with China, the findings demonstrated ways that China plays a leading role in US-China research collaboration, based on first authorship and governmental funding patterns. Findings also showed that over the past 5 years, US research article publications would have declined without co-authorship with China, whereas China’s publication rate would have risen without the USA. Using zero-sum and positive-sum frameworks, this study shows the benefits of US collaboration with China for both the US nation-state and global science.

De Meo C.