Index Copernicus

We hereby express our opposition to the unfair journal indexation policy adopted by the owners of the DOAJ database (Directory of Open Access Journals), which consists in discriminating against titles indexed in the ICI Journals Master List database maintained by the Index Copernicus team. The practice undertaken by DOAJ leads to market monopolization, violates the values ​​of freedom and equality. We consider this state of affairs to be unfair primarily to representatives of scientific journals, who annually subject their activities to multi-parametric verification in the ICI database.

According to the policy adopted by DOAJ, journals cannot display bibliometric metrics that have not been calculated by official national accreditation lists and entities such as Clarivate, Scopus, Google Scholar, Altmetric, Crossref, which it considers the only reliable, widely adopted indicators. Source: https://doaj.org/apply/guide/; access date: 02.04.2025).

We believe that the exclusion of the ICV metric calculated by the Index Copernicus journal evaluation team from this list results from the owners of the DOAJ database being unaware of the facts about the nature of the ICI Journals Master List. Below are some such facts.

The ICV (Index Copernicus Value) indicator calculated for journals indexed in the ICI Journals Master List database is a commonly accepted metric for evaluating journals. It should be emphasized that this is (the only one functioning on the bibliometric database market) a parametric indicator, not a citation indicator. The history of the ICV dates back to 2012. Since then, several thousand journals from over 80 countries have been submitted to the evaluation process every year. Parameterization in the ICI database is carried out on the basis of a reliable, proprietary methodology, currently based on 41 criteria. The report on the evaluation of journals conducted in 2024 is available on the given website.

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The database maintained by Index Copernicus has been indicated as the most popular place where Polish scientific journals are indexed. This information comes from a publication called in Polish "Biała Księga – Raport na temat rynku wydawnictw naukowych w Polsce w 2022 roku" (pp. 39-40; the content of the publication is available only in Polish). The data and conclusions presented in the report were presented during the 1st and 2nd National Conference of the Commission for Scientific Publishing at CRASP (The Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland).

Data collected by Index Copernicus in 2023 were used to prepare the next edition of the publication –  "Biała Księga – Raport na temat rynku wydawnictw naukowych w Polsce w 2023 roku" (pp. 29-58; the content of the publication is available only in Polish). "Biała Księga" is published by the Lodz University Press on behalf of the Commission for Scientific Publishing at the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (CRASP).

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Even the above circumstances, the history of operation and achievements of Index Copernicus testify to the reliability, transparency and purposefulness of the ICI Journals Master List database. We hope that the owners of the DOAJ database will conduct a reliable analysis of the specifics of the ICI database and the result of the journal indexation - the parametric indicator Index Copernicus Value (ICV).