China Abandons the Path of ‘Journal Ranking’: Now Contribution, Not Place of Publication, Will Be Evaluated

Beijing — China has announced that it will gradually abandon its traditional evaluation system based on journal rankings, impact factors, number of articles, and the Hirsch index.

According to Nature magazine, on March 27, the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) decided it would no longer update or publish its ranking of scientific journals. This system had been evaluating scientific research in China for 22 years.

Initially, this ranking helped researchers identify influential journals. But over time, it became the basis for decisions regarding hiring, promotion, and funding — where the journal in which an article was published became more important than the actual content of the article itself.

Chinese universities and researchers had long been evaluated based on the place of publication rather than their contribution. Experts say the CAS decision signals the end of an era of scientific journal evaluation based on a single standardized criterion.

The challenge now is to build a new evaluation system — one that measures the real contribution of research, not the place of its publication. China’s ongoing reform initiative, “Overcoming the Five Major Criteria,” is moving in this direction, aiming to abandon excessive reliance on exam results, prestigious programs, diplomas, publication counts, and academic titles at the expense of real contribution.

The CAS decision is an important step, but the real work has just begun, noted mathematician Andrey Rinchino.