Criteria for Inclusion

Journals should be submitted by publishers, members of the editorial board or others affiliated with a journal. Only submissions from researchers, research advisors, librarians or the readership will be evaluated.

General

• Only scientific periodicals/journals will be evaluated. Books, monographic series, and conference proceedings are currently not included.
• The journal must have a valid ISSN code, confirmed by the International ISSN Portal. Be advised that journals with ISSN codes listed as “assigned to a publication but not yet confirmed” or “free ISSN” will not be processed.
• All indexed journals must have been active for at least two years. The fulfilment of the requirements for inclusion will be determined by reviewing the last two years of published issues.
• Each issue of the journal should contain at least 5 research articles.
• All original articles must be accompanied by abstracts in English.
• Information about the institutional affiliations of all authors.
  
  
  

The website

The journal must have a functional website, containing the following information:

• The journal’s ISSN.
• A description of the journal’s peer review process (see separate section for a more detailed description)
• A complete list of the members of the editorial board, including their institutional affiliation and academic title (see separate section for a more detailed description).
• A description of the journal’s aim, its theme and its intended audience.
• An archive containing, as a minimum, the last two years of publication.
• A description of the periodicity of publication. If a journal describes itself as publishing twice a year, then the publication history must confirm this.
• A description of the journal’s guidelines for ethical publishing.
• A description of the journal’s guidelines concerning copyright.
• A description of the journal’s guidelines concerning plagiarism.
• A description of the journal’s policies concerning Open Access publishing.
• A description of the journal’s policies concerning Article Processing Charges (APC)

Peer Review

• The peer review process must be described clearly and in detail on the journal’s website. It is not sufficient to simply state that articles are peer reviewed.
• Editors must ensure that there is no conflict of interest between authors and reviewers (see separate section for a more detailed explanation of what is regarded as a Conflict of Interest).

Editorial Board

• The journal must have a scientific editorial board consisting of at least 3 members.
• A complete list of the members of the editorial board, including their institutional affiliation and academic title should be openly accessible on the journal’s website.
• If the journal is published by a university or other institutions, at least one-third of the editorial board should be from another institution than the one publishing the journal.

Authorship

• Author affiliations must be accessible for all authors publishing in the journal.
• The authorship of a journal must be national or international, but cannot be local.
• The authorship is local if more than two-thirds of the authors from the last two years of publication are from the same institution.

European relevance

It should be clear from the journal’s website that the journal is relevant to the European scientific community.

• Does the editorial board contain scholars with affiliations to a European institution?
• Does the journal publish articles written by authors with affiliations to a European institution?
• Is the journal submitted for potential inclusion by person(s) with affiliations to a European institution?
• Is the journal in any way concerned with issues that are of relevance to the European scientific community?

Special issues

• Special issues are the editor’s responsibility, and the journal’s rules and guidelines are applicable.
• Special issues should demonstrate a well-defined thematic cohesion between their articles, and the theme must bear a clear relation to the aims and scope of the journal.
  

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