The harsh world of publishing in emerging regions and implications for editors and publishers: The case of Vietnam

Abstract

This article discusses the emergence of academic publishing in a fast‐growing transition economy, Vietnam, where the race has heated up to publish in international journals, preferably with a high impact factor, and to accelerate the indexing of domestic journals. Within the fields of SSH alone, the publication output grew by 17% a year in the 2008–2018 period, encouraged by government policies and financial incentives for researchers. This review demonstrates an environment where there is sufficient financial growth to support increased R&D but limited skills and knowledge of how to increase quality publication output, either within national or international journals. The article highlights the drivers of increasing scientific publication output, as well as the traps and pitfalls that follow this competition. It suggests that there are opportunities for publishers and other organizations to improve ethical and practical publishing issues and to develop co‐publishing agreements that will increase the visibility of the country in international academia. The article indicates the harsh reality of pursuing higher publishing standards in academia, a world that has long been dominated by authors and publishers from industrialized countries.