Xinrui Admits Preferentially Adjusting Ranking Categories for Chinese Journals
Xinrui, a Chinese academic journal ranking agency, has announced a support program for journals owned or managed by Chinese institutions.
In a post on their official website and WeChat account, Xinrui did not specify what measures would be taken to support the journals selected for the program. However, when replying to an enquiry from the 5GH Team, the agency stated that the support mainly involves "分区倾斜" (i.e., a preferential adjustment of the journals’ ranking categories). In the same post, Xinrui also stated that the measures would not affect the ranking categories of other journals. Nevertheless, this preferential adjustment raises concerns about the independence, impartiality, and openness of the Xinrui Ranking.
Xinrui Ranking is the successor to the CAS Journal Ranking, which is widely used by Chinese institutions to evaluate the quality of academic journals. It also affects the journals to which Chinese researchers submit their manuscripts.
For a long time, Xinrui, or the CAS Journal Ranking, has caused controversy within the scientific community. Many Chinese journals have reportedly been assigned unexpectedly high categories despite their low citation impact. Although the Citation Success Index metric can yield conclusions that contradict average citation counts, many researchers in China suspect that Xinrui or CAS has deliberately adjusted the categories of certain journals.
The support program is specifically for journals that are owned or managed by Chinese institutions, publish articles in English, and are indexed in SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, ESCI, and OAJ. The application deadline is September 30. It remains unclear how many journals will be selected, but the 5GH Team will keep an eye on the matter.