Promoting journals into international databases: a comparative analysis of the leading Russian universities journals and the journals of foreign countries (2013-2018)

Abstract

The paper analyzes Russian journals, especially the journals of the universities participating in Project 5-100, in comparison with journals in China, Germany and the USA, as well as with world average scientometric indicators. The journals of the universities-participants of Project 5-100 are considered as a reference group, since the universities of this group deliberately implement measures to promote their journals in the international databases Web of Science and Scopus. The results of the study showed that in most cases, Russian journals included in the Scopus database in the same year with analogous journals in the countries under consideration are inferior to them in citation dynamics, which, in particular, may indicate insufficient visibility of Russian science in the international arena. At the same time, the scientometric indicators of the journals of Project 5-100 universities in a significant number of cases exceed the national average. The analysis also showed that journals published in English or predominantly in English show the highest indicators. It is concluded that the translation of Russian journals into English, as well as a targeted policy to include Russian journals in international scientific citation databases, will significantly increase the visibility of Russian science in the international arena.