(1 Jan 2023) This is the 3rd year that Chinese Academy of Science released its early warning journal list. This list covers journals from Sage, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Springer, Wiley, and OA publishers such as Frontiers and MDPI.
“…Targeting the scientific misconduct problem in China and responding to the call for early warning mechanism, the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) released the first “Early Warning Journal List 2023”. The List received widespread attention and recognition from the academic community, administrative departments, and journal publishers. This year, CAS continues its previous annual journal evaluation works and released “Early Warning Journal List 2023”. The List for 2023 cites multiple criteria for the inclusion of a journal and is established through expert consultation. The List is not an evaluation of each paper published within the journals on the List. Its purpose is to remind researchers to choose their publishing venues carefully and prompt publishers to strengthen their quality control for manuscripts.
According to different targeting issues, the listed journals are assigned to three warning levels: high, medium, or low. High-level warning aims to curb the research misconduct problem. Journals with high warning publish fabricated manuscripts from paper mills. Medium-level warning aims to improve the use efficiency of research funding in China and increase international communication of academic achievements. Journals with medium warning have low internationalization degree of authors and readers, and the APC is unreasonable. Low-level warning aims to remind scientists that these journals are at risk of plummeting JIF (Journal Impact Factor), mainly including the large-scale journals whose publication volume has surged.
The List is determined by the principles of objectivity, prudence, and openness. CAS journal ranking team hopes to work together with scientific community, administrative departments, and journal publishers to promote scientific spirit and improve the conduct and ethics of the science community.
CAS journal ranking team will soon release the “Retraction and Paper Mills Integrated Retrieval System (AMEND)” to help build a better research environment in China.”
The journal list is here.
