The "China Journal High-quality Development Forum", sponsored by the National Press and Publication Administration, was recently held in Shanghai. With one main forum and six sub-forums, it is focused on key points, hot spots and difficult issues of high-quality development of journals, covering all fields of journals and multiple disciplines. The forum is of great significance as an important move to study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions and thought on culture.
According to the Annual Report for International Citation of Chinese Academic Journals (2023), the total number of times Chinese academic journals were cited in 2022 was 2,167,841, increasing by 27.1% year on year, achieving positive growth for 12 consecutive years. The pace of China towards the world's first-class sci-tech journals is accelerating. Liu Xingping, minister of the Science and Technology Innovation Department of the China Association for Science and Technology, revealed that in recent years, the total number of journals included into SCI had increased by less than 4%, while the number of Chinese journals included into SCI had increased by 25% and the number of Q1 journals had increased by 1.8 times. This represents China’s growth against trend, under the context of a decrease in the number of journals included into SCI last year. A number of outstanding journals of philosophy and social sciences keep pursuing excellence and take lead in innovation. They organize academic activities to facilitate academic exchanges, dig out academic hot spots, discover outstanding talents, advance discipline construction and take lead in academic development, in addition to paying attention to the characteristics of the times, expanding themselves and constantly releasing academic achievements.
For a long time, culture has lost its principal role in the journal circle and accordingly there exist some problems. Qin Kaifeng, chief editor of the Humanities Journal of Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences, told the newspaper that the scientific spirit in excellent traditional Chinese culture emboldened us to have culture play its principal role. Journals undertake the more important task of producing local original knowledge in addition to academic communication.
Academic journals of social sciences cannot be absent, nor can they become mute; they should have the courage to assume the mission of the new era, and lead experts and scholars to conduct research on major theoretical innovation of the Party, the connotation of Chinese-style modernization, and major issues of China's economic and social development, so as to contribute to the construction of a strong country and national rejuvenation. In addition, Professor Chen Heng, vice president of Shanghai Normal University, and Professor Wang Yonghao, editor-in-chief of Fudan Journal, said that it was necessary to combine the experience of establishing academic journals abroad with the experience of Chinese academic journals, and learn from Western countries to deal with the relationship between local/national things and shared/global things, and think about how to make our things go global. The Chinese civilization is an open system formed through constant exchanges and mutual learning with other civilizations, and high-quality academic journals should strive to improve academic exchanges between China and other countries and innovate Chinese academia through mutual learning.
Amid the rapid development of new media and digital publication, it is inevitable for academic journals to go intensive and digital. However, there must be some limitations in the pilot stage. Wei Junmin, president of Chinese Medical Journals, suggested that the pilot units be provided with management policies, funds and technical support to match the reform.
In the new journey, academic journals are contributing to the prosperity of China, adapting themselves in response to the call of the times and advancing national rejuvenation with high-quality development.
Published on Nov 16, 2023