Why Did the “Light of Domestic Journals” Fail to Make the Cut?

Recently, the second phase of the China Science and Technology Journal Excellence Action Plan (referred to as the “Excellence Plan”) was announced, sparking attention in the scientific community due to the exclusion of the journal Cell Research from the list of “Leading English Journals” in the life sciences sector.

The “Excellence Plan,” organized by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and other departments, is regarded as the most significant evaluation event in the Chinese journal sector. The most anticipated aspect is the first-tier “Leading English Journals,” of which 50 will be selected. Selected journals will receive annual funding of up to 1.5 million yuan over the next five years. However, Cell Research was categorized into the second tier, known as “English Tier Journals,” which comprises 150 journals with annual funding amounts only one-third of that allocated to first-tier journals.

Cell Research has long been celebrated as the “light of domestic journals,” with its impact factor once exceeding 40, comparable to top international journals. Many researchers expressed their disappointment regarding the evaluation results to China News Weekly. Some analyses suggest that its exclusion is indicative of ongoing controversies in journal evaluation metrics and reflects broader concerns about the challenges faced by domestic journals in gaining international recognition.

Publication Volume as an Evaluation Metric

“The exclusion of Cell Research from the top 50 domestic English science journals in the Excellence Plan shocked many in the industry,” said Ding Sheng, the founding dean of the School of Pharmacy at Tsinghua University and director of the Global Health Drug Development Center. He has closely followed Cell Research for many years, viewing it as a longstanding and respected journal in the field of life sciences that has overcome numerous challenges to achieve its current status.

Professor Wu Jun from the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, while acknowledging that his research team has never submitted to Cell Research, shared that he has written reviews for articles published in the journal during his postdoctoral period. He noted that in recent years, he has read many articles from Cell Research and believes the journal’s selection quality has reached the standard of top-tier journals like Cell, Nature, and Science (collectively known as CNS). “At least among overseas Chinese researchers, Cell Research enjoys a high reputation and deserves more support,” he remarked.

Previously, Cell Research was included in the first phase of the “Excellence Plan” and received annual funding of 3 million yuan. In 2019, multiple departments issued a document emphasizing the need to accelerate the construction of world-class scientific journals to strengthen the cultural and scientific foundation for advancing into global scientific powers. That same year, CAST initiated the first phase of the “Excellence Plan.” Over five years, the plan has shown effectiveness in supporting high-level domestic journals. CAST recently reported that 154 journals have entered the top 25% of international discipline rankings, and journals like Cell Research have consistently appeared in the global top 100 by impact factor in several years.

The impact factor is the most commonly used metric to assess the influence of academic journals. Established in 1990, Cell Research is co-sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science and the Chinese Society for Cell Biology. Editor-in-Chief Li Dangsheng previously served on the editorial board of Cell. When he returned to China in 2006 to take on the role of executive deputy editor, the journal’s impact factor lingered around 2, while CNS sub-journals had impact factors exceeding 10, and the main journals surpassed 30. Many submissions to Cell Research at that time lacked scientific rigor and innovation, with authors struggling even with basic English writing. When Li requested authors to conduct additional experiments, he often faced backlash: “If I need to revise, why should I submit to a journal with an impact factor of 2?”

Under Li’s leadership, the editorial team proactively reached out to authors to secure manuscripts just slightly above the journal’s existing standards. As the quality of articles and the journal’s reputation improved, the impact factor of Cell Research began to soar, first crossing the 20 mark in 2020, a historic achievement among domestic journals. By 2022, due to a surge in life sciences research amid the global pandemic, the impact factor peaked above 40. However, by June of this year, the global data analytics firm Clarivate reported that Cell Research‘s latest impact factor had dropped to 28.1, a trend also seen in the impact factors of other journals like Cell, which many in the industry attribute to a “post-pandemic pullback.”

Several respondents noted that while Cell Research earned a reputation through its efforts, its exclusion does not imply injustice. Ding Sheng believes that the exclusion is closely linked to the persistent flaws in the impact factor rating system.

Li Meng, a former editor at a domestic engineering journal, explained that the impact factor reflects a journal’s academic influence based on the number of “citable” articles published in the preceding two years and the total citations of those articles in the current year. If a journal published 200 articles in 2022 and these were cited 1,000 times in 2023, the impact factor for that year would be 1,000/200 = 5.

“While there is a positive correlation between impact factor and journal quality, it should not be the sole criterion for journal evaluation,” Li Meng stated. Due to the manipulable nature of both the numerator and denominator, the academic community has long criticized the phenomenon of “inflating” impact factors. Common manipulation methods include controlling publication volumes and increasing citation counts.

Publication volume correlates with journal publishing frequency. Wu Jun pointed out that journals like Nature and Science are published weekly, while Cell is bi-weekly; however, they typically feature more articles per issue. In contrast, more specialized journals, such as the Cell Stem Cell sub-journal, are monthly, with annual publication numbers fluctuating between 100 and 200. While Cell Research is also a monthly journal, it has consistently published fewer than 100 articles annually, contradicting its positioning as a peer to international top-tier sub-journals. “Why hasn’t Cell Research‘s publication volume increased despite its impact factor exceeding 10 for years, reaching sub-journal standards?” is a common question among industry experts.

Li Meng noted that some journals deliberately reduce publication volumes to boost their impact factors, employing various strategies. For example, some may accept only solicited manuscripts while rejecting submissions from research teams with whom they do not have collaborations, a form of manipulation that is easily detectable. More insidiously, they may maintain good relations with publishers, categorizing non-research articles such as correspondence, reviews, and corrections as “non-citable,” thereby reducing the count of “citable” articles.

Statistics show that the annual percentage of original research papers in Cell Research exceeds 97%, significantly higher than the 90% in Cell. However, Li Meng speculates that the relatively low number of review articles may contribute to this discrepancy and does not prove that the journal is deliberately controlling its publication volume. Review articles greatly influence impact factors due to their broad scope and high citation rates; authoritative reviews typically only appear in leading journals, so having fewer review articles is not an advantage for Cell Research.

On November 12, CAST released a statement indicating that the “Excellence Plan” evaluated journals based on multiple indicators to assess the necessity of support, and did not simply order them by impact factor. For project management purposes, the classification of proposed funding journals into “Leading Journals” and “Tiered Journals” does not equate to an assessment of their international academic influence. Respondents mentioned that, aside from the impact factor, publication volume was also introduced as an evaluation metric in this round. If Cell Research was excluded due to low annual publication volume or few review articles, it would be considered reasonable.

The potential for manipulating citation counts is even greater. Li Meng pointed out that in the industry, encouraging researchers to submit quality papers is the most widely accepted method. Some journals may solicit articles from prominent figures in their field or publish more review articles to enhance citation counts, which is not inherently problematic. However, if a journal incentivizes authors to cite its previous articles or resorts to publishing editorials to artificially inflate self-citations, this is viewed as unethical behavior in the industry. “Today’s journal editors wouldn’t engage in such lowly tactics,” Li Meng asserted. Some journals may form “mutual citation alliances,” increasing citation counts while avoiding scrutiny of self-citation rates. Regardless, malicious manipulation of impact factors violates academic integrity, although the threshold for what constitutes “malicious” behavior can be subjective.

Li Dangsheng and the editorial team have previously expedited the review process for significant studies. He recalled that in 2016, a paper went from submission to acceptance within four days and was online within ten days, shortly before a competing team’s research was published in a Nature sub-journal.

Li Meng emphasized that publishing academic results is indeed a race; multiple research teams worldwide often compete on similar topics, and the first to publish claims the findings. Leveraging rapid publication to attract quality results is a reasonable and effective way to enhance influence. “If a journal fails to adopt such strategies, it may fall into the ‘poor journals get poorer’ Matthew effect and struggle to recover,” Li Meng admitted.

The industry maintains a tacit understanding regarding the operation of impact factors. The consensus is that for ordinary journals, achieving both a high impact factor and a significant publication volume is challenging; those that do typically reach CNS level. Reasonable control of publication volume has become a common practice for maintaining impact factors. Established journals, with years of operation and deep foundations, are less concerned about their impact factors, while newer journals still face pressures for survival tied to their impact factors. “Just as businesses find ways to legally avoid taxes, the academic publishing industry is complex, and journals that understand how to navigate the rules survive more easily,” Ding Sheng remarked.

Currently, the organizers of the “Excellence Plan” have not provided further clarification on the reasons behind Cell Research‘s exclusion from the first tier. China News Weekly contacted CAST’s publicity and cultural department regarding this matter, but no response was received by the time of publication. Ding Sheng hopes the organizers will make the evaluation criteria, especially weights and details, public. He noted that the academic community recognizes there are no absolute standards for judging journal quality. It is understandable for organizers to have biases or preferences based on national policy direction and to make trade-offs in evaluation metrics; even suggestions like “since a journal has already received funding in one phase, we prefer to support other journals” are completely acceptable. “What the academic community needs most now is increased transparency and reduced ‘manipulability,'” he asserted.

Regarding Cell Research‘s recent exclusion, China News Weekly made several attempts to contact Li Dangsheng, who indicated it was not a suitable time for interviews during the period of public interest but mentioned that the editorial team is preparing materials to appeal the evaluation results through official channels.

International Reputation Still Needs Building

“I often tell my colleagues that submitting to Cell Research is a good choice; it has a high readership, and results can be well disseminated,” Wu Jun noted while promoting Cell Research to his colleagues. However, he feels that the journal’s international recognition and acceptance remain quite low. While its high impact factor is well acknowledged, most of his Chinese colleagues are familiar with Cell Research, yet his American colleagues often lack knowledge about the journal’s positioning and quality.

Multiple respondents indicated that insufficient levels of internationalization are significant factors limiting the development of Cell Research and a common issue among domestic English journals. As an English-language journal, the majority of corresponding authors of articles published in Cell Research are still of Chinese descent, marking a stark contrast with leading international journals. In fact, the claim that Cell Research has reached the level of CNS sub-journals in the life sciences field is still debatable. “Currently, we can only say that its impact factor has reached CNS sub-journal levels, but the calculation of impact factors does not account for the demographic distribution of article authors,” Wu Jun explained.

Wu believes that impact factors are no longer a shortcoming for many domestic journals; what they urgently need is further recognition from the international academic community. Reputation often has little to do with impact factor. He cited the example of the established international journal Development, which has had an impact factor around 5 in recent years. Its lower impact factor may result from recent research directions that are not as popular, yet it is still widely recognized as a classic journal with high-quality articles.

The industry has its own ways of acknowledging such journals. Wu stated that when researchers in American universities apply for tenure, holding articles published in these types of journals can facilitate a smooth evaluation and earn high scores. However, in China, an article published in a journal with an impact factor below 5 may even prevent a doctoral student from graduating.

The lack of international reputation significantly undermines researchers’ confidence in the journal. A professor in the life sciences at a top-tier university in Beijing admitted to China News Weekly that if considering journals with equal impact factors, domestic journals would not be the first choice. This is due to their smaller audience and the necessity for their academic achievements to gain broader international recognition. However, if graduate students are under pressure to graduate and need a publication quickly, submitting to a domestic journal might be acceptable.

Wu also remarked that in the life sciences, if researchers aim for tenure, having a publication in Cell Research on their CV could raise some questions from assessors due to unfamiliarity with the journal, which might not result in negative impacts but wouldn’t serve as a highlight either. A publication in a CNS sub-journal would certainly enhance an applicant’s profile.

Cell Research has also made efforts toward internationalization. Since 2005, it has collaborated with the Nature Publishing Group (now Springer Nature) for its publication. This partnership provides the journal with channels for distribution and promotion via international publishing platforms, enhancing its global influence. The “borrowing a boat to go to sea” strategy has been adopted by many domestic journals and has become a significant method for early impact factor enhancement.

However, establishing an international reputation remains a shared challenge among domestic journals. Wu emphasized that this is a long-term process requiring substantial promotional efforts. CNS journals set up offices in various countries, establishing connections with local universities and conducting planned outreach in campuses and research institutions. Ensuring article quality while intentionally reducing the publication volume of domestic authors to accommodate submissions from abroad could yield fluctuations in article quality. However, just as Cell Research gradually established its impact factor over a decade ago, this transformation could ultimately result in positive feedback.

Many scholars fear that future domestic journals may continue to follow the old path dictated by impact factors, adopting “compliant yet less than honorable means” to secure room for growth. This issue remains unresolved. Ding Sheng believes that the journal publishing system is beneficial in helping readers filter academic results, providing expertise and curation services that guarantee the quality of these results since they undergo rigorous peer review.

Simultaneously, the peer review process itself contains “manipulable space,” such as “favoritism” and “relationship papers,” which are the sources of impact factor flaws. Currently, international support for academic research is becoming increasingly diverse. Ding Sheng cited instances where, when applying for certain international life sciences grants, applicants are advised to omit the journals where their results were published, instead listing preprints on open academic platforms like bioRxiv, allowing reviewers to focus solely on the papers themselves. The future trend in journal evaluation may move toward depersonalization and the de-emphasis of impact factors.

The needs of submitters are also diversifying. “If a manuscript’s intention is to be open access, it may garner more consideration for open access journals like eLife,” Wu Jun noted. Since last year, eLife has adopted a model that reviews preprints for publication without rejections, making all articles and revisions transparent. This decouples the journal from the peer review mechanism recognized by Clarivate, prompting eLife to receive a warning last month. On November 13, Clarivate announced it would no longer assign an impact factor to eLife. This move is viewed by some as a victory for the “de-impact factor movement.”

In the life sciences, an increasing number of research findings are being first released as preprints on bioRxiv before later appearing in traditional journals. Li Meng pointed out that these platforms have become indicators of high-impact articles in their fields, drawing more attention from mainstream journals. Researchers typically need to stay updated on the latest research developments in their fields, and relying solely on traditional journals may result in a half-year lag in research sensitivity due to lengthy review periods. “The most cutting-edge results in academia have transitioned to open access, while domestic journals remain mired in the impact factor swamp; this is the most worthy point for reflection,” Li Meng remarked.

“When you hear about CNS-level journals, your first reaction is not about which country they belong to. I hope that in the future, when people hear about Cell Research, their first reaction won’t be ‘this is a Chinese journal,'” Wu Jun concluded.