Initiative will support Egypt’s 2030 vision to achieve scientific excellence by creating a competitive, innovative and diversified economy
(29 May 2018, Cairo) Clarivate Analytics has partnered with the Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB), the Egyptian government’s digital library and online knowledge hub to launch the first Arabic Citation Index (ARCI). This index will launch in 2020 as part of Egypt’s 2030 Vision to transform Egypt into a ‘knowledge economy’ and will be the first ever mapping of Arabic scholarly literature in a citation index. The ARCI will be powered by the Web of Science- the world’s most trusted and only publisher-neutral citation index for researchers in Egypt and across the 22 member states of the Arab League.
Funded by the EKB, the new citation index will introduce an Arabic interface for the Web of Science, providing access to bibliographic information and citations to scholarly articles from expertly curated Arabic journals and other Web of Science content. The creation of a comprehensive bibliographic/citation database of Arabic scholarly publishing will make Arabic scholarly content more accessible, connecting it to more than 1.4 billion cited research references (dating back to 1900) and the highest quality, peer-reviewed scholarly content from across the globe.
Pioneered by the late Dr. Eugene Garfield, the concept of citation indexing for research has revolutionized the way people search for information. Citation indexes track bibliographic references added by authors of published papers and provide an enriched way to search and analyze literature by gathering data on journal assessment and areas of research activity. This analysis that’s not possible with simple keyword or topical searching.
The primary aim of ARCI will be to evaluate the quality and research output of Arabic researchers, universities and research organizations. By measuring these outputs, the ARCI will enhance the Arabic academic footprint, identify critical Arabic research, and improve funding opportunities for researchers. The ARCI will be the fifth regional citation index developed by the Web of Science. Other citation indexes powered by Web of Science include: Chinese Science Citation Database, SciELO Citation Index, Russian Science Citation Index and KCI-Korean Journal Database.
The announcement in full is here.
