Good Intentions Gone Wrong: Russian Historical Scholarship and the Proliferation Effect

Abstract

Good Intentions Gone WrongRussian Historical Scholarship and the Proliferation Effect Evgenii A. Krestiannikov (bio) The beginning of the new millennium witnessed unprecedented changes for Russian journals, driven not by shifts in scholarship or publishing technology but by external factors. By far the most of important of these has been an overt initiative on the part of the Russian government to disincentivize low-impact publication and raise the general level, visibility, and competitiveness of Russian scholarship in the international arena. Given the critical importance that state policy has accorded to numerical/statistical measurement (naukometriia) in this area, journals and authors have found themselves forced to pay attention to their work in new ways, developing the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in what has become an increasingly scrutinized and quantified publishing environment. Although this essay focuses on publication in the historical field, the developments affecting history are similar to those affecting other disciplines. At issue is the unprecedented decision by the government to transform academic journals into the arbiters and regulators of the quality of national research. The shift began some 15 years ago, when the Supreme Commission for Accreditation (Vysshaia attestatsionnaia komissiia [VAK]) of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education determined that successfully defended dissertations could be announced only in a select list of journals—the so-called "VAK list"—that met a number of formal expectations established by the commission. Though the reform prompted some grumbling at first, most prospective authors—that is, advanced graduate students and scholars like myself studying or working in Russian academia—ultimately accepted the commission's decision and adapted to the new development. [End Page 119] Beginning a few years later, in approximately 2012, Russian academic institutions, scholars, and journals then began a marked turn toward prioritizing publication metrics. The famous "May decrees" of President Vladimir Putin—which, among other things, called for upping the number of Russian-authored publications in the Web of Science (WoS) database—were clearly instrumental in driving this new policy. Various initiatives to stimulate academic production then followed, and the result was an unmistakable championing of the new virtue of visible, quantifiable publication activity. Today the consequences of this shift are self-evident: the tracking of publications in international databases has become standard business in Russian academia; and the names of the databases themselves—most notably WoS and Scopus—are commonplaces of the Russian academic lexicon. From a means to improve academic publishing, metrics have morphed into an end in themselves. And the effects of the change have been rapid and confusing. Both overtly and covertly, consciously and unconsciously, the achievement of ever higher counts of international publication has emerged as the principal indicator of success for Russian academic institutions and Russian academics alike. The age of metrics enforcement is clearly upon us. All it takes is a quick survey of the various ways that institutions have sought in recent years to stimulate production as well as punish the unproductive to see that the "scholarly product" of our time is now thoroughly quantified. Researchers and university educators are all but obligated to measure their work in terms of quantified output. A healthy publication profile in recognized international databases invariably translates into good standing and a decent salary, while a weak publication record usually spells the opposite: a pay cut and potential career disaster. Not surprisingly, this leads everyone, administrators and scholars alike, to pay inordinate attention to WoS/Scopus, the two databases that seem to define the acme of current academic production. I acquired my first exposure to the politics of publication in international databases about a decade ago, in 2012–13. I vividly remember how at some point during that year I discovered quite unexpectedly that my university administration considered me one of the most valued workers among our faculty. The reason? This was the time when our administrators began attributing special weight to publication rates in WoS/Scopus, and as I had published some articles in WoS/Scopus journals, my name had drawn attention. Soon there was talk of material incentives. I learned that different universities had begun offering scholars bonuses for their publications that appeared in international databases, paying them in some cases as...