Scientometric Implosion that Leads to Explosion: Case Study of Armenian Journals

Abstract Purpose The purpose of this study is to introduce a new concept and term into the scientometric discourse and research—scientometric implosion—and test the idea on the example of the Armenian journals. The article argues that the existence of a compressed scientific area in the country makes pressure on the journals and after some time this pressure makes one or several journals explode—break the limited national scientific area and move to the international arena. As soon as one of the local journals breaks through this compressed space and appears at an international level, further explosion happens, which makes the other journals follow the same path. Design/methodology/approach Our research is based on three international scientific databases—WoS, Scopus, and RISC CC, from where we have retrieved information about the Armenian journals indexed there and citations received by those journals and one national database—the Armenian Science Citation Index. Armenian Journal Impact Factor (ArmJIF) was calculated for the local Armenian journals based on the general impact factor formula. Journals were classified according to Glänzel and Schubert (2003). Findings Our results show that the science policy developed by the scientific authorities of Armenia and the introduction of ArmJIF have made the Armenian journals comply with international standards and resulted in some local journals to break the national scientific territory and be indexed in international scientific databases of RISC, Scopus, and WoS. Apart from complying with technical requirements, the journals start publishing articles also in foreign languages. Although nearly half of the local journals are in the fields of social sciences and humanities, only one journal from that field is indexed in international scientific databases. Research limitation One of the limitations of the study is that it was performed on the example of only one state and the second one is that more time passage is needed to firmly evaluate the results. However, the introduction of the concept can inspire other similar case study. Practical implications The new term and relevant model offered in the article can practically be used for the development of national journals. Originality/value The article proposes a new term and a concept in scientometrics.