Recently, the scientometric database Scopus of the Elsevier publishing company published a new list of excluded titles (for March 2022). We are already accustomed to such news almost every month, but the latest list shocked the Ukrainian scientific community. Indeed, among the excluded journals is the Bulletin of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, which has been indexed in the database since 2020.
In the official list published on the database website, the reason for the exclusion of the journal was "Publication Concerns"
Scientific Publications, as a partner of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, contacted the official representatives of Scopus to receive a detailed comment on the reasons for the exclusion of the title by the Scopus Content Selection & Advisory Board.
Letter from the Scopus team:
Answer from the editors of the Bulletin of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine:
The scientometric indicators of the journal have improved significantly in 2021 compared to the year the journal was accepted for indexing (2020). NO violations of ethics, an abnormal increase in the number of articles in the issue or other manipulations on the part of the journal were found. In addition, the journal continued to be free, as it publishes exclusively high-quality scientific content.
One of the key reasons for the exclusion of the journal is the insufficient number of foreigners in the editorial board.
Currently, it consists of 46 distinguished scientists (professors, academicians), and almost half of them are representatives of other countries: the USA, Germany, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Portugal, Moldova, Hungary, Romania and Kazakhstan . Over the 2 years since the inclusion of the journal in the Scopus database, the number of foreigners in the editorial board has increased by 15%.
We would like to place special emphasis on this point. While the Scopus database, despite such a powerful international composition, stopped indexing the Bulletin of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine due to the “relatively small number of other European countries” in the editorial board, in March 2022, Scopus reviewers added 3 new journals from Russia, the editorial staff of which is almost consists entirely of citizens of a single country.
You can check their editorial boards here:
• https://vestnikdv.ru/jour/about/editorialTeam – 4 foreigners out of 23 members
• https://nv.mosconsv.ru/node/248#board - 2 foreigners out of 20 members
• http://en.ecosysttrans.com/o-zhurnale/redkollegiya.php - only 1 foreigner out of 10 members
The editors of the journal did not receive a message with a remark about the need for changes in the national composition of the editorial board. Officially, the Scopus rules for this indicator have not changed, so the categorical criticism of CSAB in this direction is not clear to us.
No less indignation was caused by a remark about citations. The Scopus database was created only in 2004, but its popularization in Ukraine began only in 2016-2017 after the appearance of the relevant criteria and requirements in the regulatory documents of the Ministry of Education and Science. We wonder why, then, one of the reasons for the exception is the low citation level of the journal during the period when it did not even have indexation?
In addition, Scopus reviewers shift the responsibility for extraneous resources, where this journal was cited, to the editors of the journal, and which they mark as “weak or dodgy”. If authors from Central Asia and Eastern Europe refer to the most rated and influential scientific publication in the field of law in Ukraine in their research, this is their personal right. At the same time, the editorial team should not track references to their journal around the world and do not have any tools and authority to prohibit such references, since this contradicts the very philosophy of modern international science.
According to our analysis, this decision is extremely subjective and depends on many factors: from the level of involvement of the reviewer in the process of studying the parameters of the journal to his nationality and political views (recall that among the people making such decisions in the structure of Scopus, there are representatives of Russia and Belarus).
Our team does not want to believe that this situation has developed due to some political disagreements, however, we are sure of the following: if the Scopus database continues to exclude Ukrainian science from the world scientific community space in favor of Russian sources, it risks quickly losing not only the position of the leading scientometric database but also fall under international sanctions.