Some Reasons for the Russian Authors Transition to Foreign Journals

Abstract

Aiming to increase Russian journals’ authority and enhance their readership, and consequently, journals’ rankings, detection of reasons for Russian authors’ transition to foreign journals is important. Recent studies demonstrated that up to one-third of Russian authors orients toward top-tiered foreign serials and do not intend to change their publication preferences. One of the obvious formal reasons is in quantitative indexes used in calculations in research organizations while evaluating the research capacity of their staff. However, external circumstances, as well as the risk of part or full restriction for Russian authors in some toptieredinternational journals lead to obstacles to the fulfillment of previous obligations. Under such conditions increase in the reputation of Russian serials, their compliance with international publishing standards, increase in their bibliometric indexes are of high importance. The paper aims to reveal the main issues caused to force Russian authors to select foreign journals and stop collaborating with domestic serials. Analyses of those reasons are believed to help detect the main vector for the successful development of Russian academic journals.