Rubbish in Science

Abstract

The problem of publications in “predatory” sources is actively discussed in the scientific community, and it has attracted the attention of government agencies responsible for scientific and technological policy. This article attempts to assess the scale of contamination of world scientific products with articles not worthy of publication. The research is based on a list of journals and collections of regular conferences excluded from the Scopus database for reasons of violation of scientific ethics. An analysis of the publications published in these sources in 2010–2019 made it possible to identify the countries and scientific areas that are most affected by the activities of predatory publishers. According to the results of calculations, the problem of scientific garbage has not spared Russia and is most acutely manifested in economic and technical sciences and some areas of medical sciences. The authors formulated conclusions about the sources of this problem and the tactics of counteracting the activities of publication “predators” on the part of states. The question is raised about how to relate to publication in a “garbage” journal and whether it is worthwhile to draw a line between “forced” and “selfish” publications in such periodicals.

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