Selecting Science Journals:Riddles and Revelations

The Guest Editorial by Lakhotia addresses an important issue of the sinking quality of science papers. The journal publication model involves three stakeholders - scientists who provide papers, agencies that publish/circulate papers, and institutions that subscribe to the endproduct. Journal production is a profitable venture as it reveals invaluable inventions and discoveries to society. Elsevier, for example, is one of the largest publishers in the world and it owns prestigious periodicals such as Lancet and Cell. It publishes nearly 380,000 articles via 2500 journals each year. In 2014 alone, the revenue of Elsevier reached USD 2.8 billion (www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/93138f-3e-87d6-11e5-90de-f44762bf9896).