After the start of the war with Ukraine, the largest publishers of scientific periodicals stopped collaborating with Russian scientific organizations. In response, the Russian authorities initiated a “white list” of scientific publications, publication in which would be a legal basis for grant reporting. Recently, about 500 journals disappeared from this list – but soon returned witha strong recommendation to refrain from paying for open access in journalsof Elsevier, which announced that payments from authors from Russia will be sent to support Ukraine. There are serious concerns that scientists who do not follow this advice risk being charged with treason.
March 31, 2022 top scientific publishers (in particular, ACS Publications, Cambridge University Press, Elsevier, IOP Publishing, Springer Nature and others) announced that they condemn the invasion and, in connection with this, stop cooperation with Russian and Belarusian scientific organizations. Elsevier in a separate statement reported that, in addition to refusing cooperation and business relations with partners in Russia and Belarus, he is making free access to his products for Ukrainian scientists . Russian organizations began to be disconnected from services. Following the publishers, the largest databases of scientific publications, primarily Web of Science and Scopus, also ceased relations with Russian organizations. However, publishing houses still accepted manuscripts and published articles by Russian researchers (British Microbiological Society, which stopped to accept research prepared with the help of Russian government funding, against this background it seems rather an exception). Russian scientists have lost access to both the articles themselves and citation data. This does not mean that they could not read scientific periodicals at all: in many cases, illegal access schemes helped, for example, Sci-Hub, Library Genesis, Nexus Searc and other services. In addition, journals, with rare exceptions, did not refuse scientists from Russia the publication of their scientific articles.
But Russian institutes lost their official subscription to scientific journals and access to scientometric data obtained from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. This meant, in particular, that Russian scientists were left without assessments: the previously created system for assessing scientific achievements (and related payments) was based mainly on scientometric data primarily from these two databases.
In this regard, the Russian government took two steps: firstly, it canceled the requirement to take into account scientometric data from Western publication databases, and secondly, it decided to create its own database for these purposes . This is how the “white list” appeared. He was compiled from 22 thousand journals from the Web of Science database (the so-called Core Collection), 27 thousand journals from Scopus and 887 Russian journals from the RSCI (Russian Science Citation Index) database. The “white list” contains information about all scientometric parameters of these journals and data about the databases where they are indexed. Now a scientist who, for example, according to the requirements of a grant, needs to publish an article in the journal first quartile in the Scopus database, you need to go to “whitey list”, make sure that his journal meets the required indicators, and this data will be the legal basis for the grant giver to accept his report.
July 12 Russian Center for Scientific Information (RCNI) announced in his telegram channel that the interdepartmental working group that is compiling the “white list” has decided to exclude of which there are 480 magazines. The reasons for this decision, as well as the list of deleted journals, were not provided anywhere. “We will return them to the site with appropriate notifications in the next few days,” the message said.
It was not difficult to guess the reasons: at the end of June, the anonymous telegram channel “Ivory Zoo” decided to “remind” that Elsevier publishing house after the start of the war with Ukraine has decided that payments from authors from Russia for articles published in Open Access journals will be sent to support Ukraine. These actions, as the author of the channel notes, “are qualified quite clearly – under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, with a sanction of 12 years to life.”
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Who pays for articles in scientific journals
Publications in scientific journals are extremely important for researchers: if a scientific result is not published, it is as if it did not exist at all. Scientific articles are also required for reporting on grants and to the government. Therefore, changes in the policies of scientific journal publishers directly affect the work of scientists.
In the past, the business model of scientific journals was structured like this: articles were published for free, and editorial boards existed by paying subscription fees for access to articles. That is, readers (the same scientists) paid for access to scientific information. In recent decades, when it became clear that this traditional model impedes access to scientific knowledge, an “inverted” model has emerged: authors pay for publication (for example, from grants), and the articles themselves are made open access. Open Access (OA) journals have a significantly wider readership, which means there is a greater chance that colleagues will cite the article. The Open Access model has several varieties, for example, Gold Open Access, where the author pays, or Diamond Open Access, where funds come from universities or other organizations.
The disadvantage of this model is the high fee for articles: publication can cost the author several thousand dollars. This often requires substantial funds from grants or other sources. It was these funds received from Russian authors that Elsevier sent to help Ukraine (or at least declared this intention).
The “Ukrainian” reason for removing 480 journals from the “white list” was confirmed to T-invariant by a source familiar with the situation: “These are only Gold Open Access journals that inform authors about the publisher’s intentions to use part of the profits for the purpose mentioned. Hybrid Elsevier remains, other publishers remain unchanged. Arguments to transfer all responsibility to the authors (conscious and educated people) and not to cut the lists, regulator (Ministry of Education and Science. – T-invariant) did not accept.”
On July 17, the excluded journals reappeared in the lists, but now each of them is accompanied by a note: “In view Elsevier’s intention to use open access payments (APC) to finance Ukraine, Russian scientists are strongly encouraged to refrain from paying for open access in Elsevier journals.”
It remains unclear why the decision to exclude almost half a thousand journals from the “white list” and then provide them with a warning like “publication in this journal is dangerous for Russian authors” was made only now. Six months ago, in December 2023, former rector of the Russian Chemical Technology University and State Duma deputy Alexander Mazhuga warned Russian scientists that payments to authors for publications in Elsevier Open Access journals “will be sent to Ukraine.” At what point this procedure was adopted is unclear, but the very practice of such “forced assistance” raises questions.
— On the one hand, the reason for this decision could be the desire not to discriminate against Russian authors on the basis of nationality, that isto give the opportunity to publish to those who do not support the war. This demonstrates Elsevier’s values of solidarity with victims of aggression. But with all this, publications under such conditions may have high risks for those anti-war scientists who are now in Russia. These circumstances cannot in any way be written off. Who will defend them in the courts in case of persecution is an open question, and they are unlikely to be asked by those who are working on such steps, says the chairman Council on Ethics for Scientific Publications sociologist Anna Kuleshova.
Whether publications in magazines themselves will be able to serve as a reason for initiating a criminal case, as Zoo predicted, is unclear. Founder of the human rights project “First Department” lawyer Ivan Pavlov hopes that it won’t come to this:</ span>
— From the moment it became known that this money could go to Ukraine, publication in this magazine could be considered criminal. But I hope that the publications that were published before the funds received by this publishing house began to go to Ukraine can hardly be considered criminal, he believes.
Author: Edited by T-invariant
Editors 18.07.2024