Studia Historiae Scientiarum recently published an article by Michał Kokowski in the section “Bibliometry, science policy, science communication”: “Lists of journals of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland 2017 & 2019”, “ICI Journal Master List 2014–2017”, and the Polish journals on the history of science, history, philosophy of science and science of science.
In this post on our blog, Michał Kokowski explains the topic of the article.
MK:
The reason for choosing the topic of this article was dictated by pragmatic issues – the need to develop rationally a scientific journal in the field of history of science and science of science.
I am told that in order to develop a scientific journal competently, one must attach great importance to the review procedure, the content of the publications and the composition of the text, as well as to scientific issues (e.g. bibliometry, scientific policy and scientific communication).
Due to the existence of different traditions of communicating scientific research in various disciplines and sub-disciplines, I am limiting my analysis to Polish journals in the field of partly related disciplines: history of science, history, philosophy of science and science of science.
I quote the information following the “Lists of journals of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland 2017 & 2019”, and the “ICI Journal Master List 2014–2017”.
I also comment on these results. I have noticed the following facts:
- There is a negative correlation between the journal’s rating in the “Lists of journals of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland 2019” and the journal rating on the “ICI Journal Master List 2014–2017” for journals from the history and history of science (i.e. the higher the rating on the Ministry’s list, the lower the rating on the ICI List);
- The presence of the journal in DOAJ did not add points in the ministerial assessment of the journal;
- The evaluation of the journal in the Scopus database did not have a significant positive impact on the ministerial scoring: it depends on the discipline and the sub-discipline;
- The journals from the list of the ministerial programme “Support for scientific journals 2019–2020” (WCN 2019–2020) and ERIH+ received 20 to 70 points; their ministerial assessment depends on the discipline and the sub-discipline, and not the quality of these journals.
A comparison of the journals’ achievements and the scores received shows that some journals received inadequate scoring.
This is why I am postulating that for the good of Polish science the obvious errors of the “Lists of journals of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland 2019” should be removed as soon as possible.
I am refering to the full article:
Michał Kokowski, “Lists of journals of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland 2017 & 2019”, “ICI Journal Master List 2014–2017”, and the Polish journals on the history of science, history, philosophy of science and science of science;
and two other related articles:
Michał Kokowski, Working session “Polish scientific journals from disciplines: «history and philosophy of science» and «science of science» – current challenges” (Kraków, 25 June 2019)
Michał Kokowski, Introduction to the subject of the working session “Polish scientific journals from disciplines: «history and philosophy of science» and «science of science» – current challenges” (Kraków, 25 June 2019) and specific proposals of organizational, editorial and legislative solutions
