Science Citation Index (SCI) and scientific evaluation system in China

Abstract

In February 2020, China’s Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science and Technology issued an official Opinion discouraging the use of the Science Citation Index (SCI) as a framework for the assessment of research performance. There is a need to assess the origin of the new policy, and how it will reshape cultures and practices of scientific knowledge production in China. We suggest that while concerns over the quality of research and conduct of scientists are at play, a deeper reason underlying the government’s adoption of a more cautious stance towards SCI is wider social controversy around what system of research assessment is best suited to social development and wellbeing in China. However, failing to continue to engage in international publication and collaboration would be self-defeating for China. We propose three recommendations for reforming scientific evaluation in China: diversity of criteria, autonomy of scientific evaluation, and quality of peer-review.

Mastering the scientific peer review process: tips for young authors from a young senior editor

“…That is, the IF value is highly affected by the skewness in the data distribution introduced by only a small fraction of highly-cited papers in a journal (Lozano et al 2012 ; Larivière et al 2016 ). Some journals have discontinued its use and some countries have recently restricted the use of the SCI system in academic evaluations (Verma 2015 ; Fernandez-Llimos 2016 ; Qian et al 2020 ; Zhu 2020 ). The trend of JFR’s metrics over the recent years, however, suggests an upward trajectory of the journal’s impact and visibility.…”

Rebuilding Geography for the 21st century through disciplinary reunification and social engagement

“…Apart from individual scholar-activists, policy makers and some big institutions are trying to make changes too. For example, in China, the Ministries of Education and of Science and Technology announced new policies to reform the academic evaluation system in 2020, urging universities to stop publication-oriented cash awards (Qian et al, 2020). The European Commission (2021) too, encouraging knowledge sharing and in support of its Horizon programmes, launched a new OA platform in 2021 enabling universal free-of-charge access to latest academic papers.…”

Geography, area studies and Chinese world-writing

“…Finally, the academic publishing industry has been important to defining the boundaries and content of WRG and FAS in China, as Chinese academics have been strongly incentivised to publish in top-tier international (western) journals since the 1980s (Qian et al, 2020). Academic career progression is closely linked to the impact factors of journals wherein one publishes, as ranked by the Clarivate Analytics Journal Citation Reports (JCR).…”