Scientific research journals and publishers

forestglip

Moderator
Staff member
I couldn't find a good existing thread for this so I thought I'd start one just for general discussion about any journals or publishers. If there's a better place, let me know.



May be of interest since we sometimes get papers from Cureus posted here:

Retraction Watch: 'Embattled journal Cureus delisted from Web of Science, loses impact factor'
October 27, 2025

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'Clarivate has removed the mega-journal Cureus from its Master Journal List, according to the October update, released today.

The move means Cureus will no longer be indexed in Web of Science or receive an impact factor. As we have reported, it can also mean researchers are less likely to submit to the journal, given universities rely on such metrics to judge researchers’ work for tenure and promotion decisions.'

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'Rebecca Krahenbuhl, a communications manager at Clarivate, told us a journal is removed from the Master Journals List when it “no longer meets” 24 quality criteria. These criteria include appropriate citations, adequate and effective peer review, and primarily original scholarly content, according to the company’s website.'

Link
 
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More about the above. This blog post says Clarivate does not release the reasons for delisting journals (and it criticizes the lack of transparency), so it's anyone's guess what specifically caused this. But it's likely to lead to a significant drop in articles from the journal.

It was interesting to learn that Cureus was the second largest journal in the world in 2024, with Scientific Reports being first.

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Journalology: 'Cureus loses its impact factor'

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'It seems possible, perhaps even likely, that research integrity challenges are the primary reason for Cureus’ removal from Web of Science; Cureus has its own page on Retraction Watch, after all. However, we don’t know the precise reasons why Web of Science made this decision.'

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'Clarivate’s Web of Science team wields immense power; it can make or break a journal with its editorial decisions and adversely affect revenue lines to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. To some degree that’s a good thing. We need publishers and editors to be held accountable for what they publish; the indexers are the closest thing we have to an enforcement agency.

However, the lack of transparency troubles me, as does the fact that the enforcers are not themselves accountable to anyone.

When a research article is retracted, the journal is expected to publish a notice explaining why the decision to retract was made. Surely the same rules should apply to indexers for journal delistings.

We’re now in a situation where the second largest academic journal in the world by article volume has lost its impact factor, and we can only speculate as to why.'
 
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