Exploring the influence of scientific journal ranking on publication performance in the Hungarian social sciences

Abstract

Using a case study of the Economic and Law Department of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, we fnd that domestic rankings greatly distort researchers’ publication preferences. This fnding is contrary to the importance of international journal rankings, such as the SCOPUS Scimago journal ranking or the Web of Science Impact Factor. We found inconsistencies between international and domestic standards and diferences between the eight committees of the academic department. Based on an exploratory empirical analysis of 4213 journals spanning eight diferent scientifc committees of social science areas (business, law, demography, sociology, regional studies, world economics, military science and political science), we prove that a key reason for Hungary’s decreasing rank in international visibility is the inconsistently strong bias for domestic journals. We show that inconsistency of ranking fairness determines the behavior of researchers; this motivational efect is especially important in small countries in which local relevance often ofsets the importance of mainstream international discourses. This problem is attenuated with the digital transformation of science; online repositories, indexing systems and online visibility have become key enablers of evidence-based assessments of publication performance.