The University Grants Commission (UGC) has abolished the Academic and Research Ethics (UGC-CARE) list of journals and, instead, has brought out significant guidelines to assist higher education institutions (HEIs), faculty members, and students in assessing the quality of publications and journals. The proposed parameters entail conditions such as ethical publication behavior, citation histories, impact factors, and a special AI-authored content policy for the publication of research articles.
UGC-CARE list, established in 2018, was meant to only accept credible journals for faculty recruitments, promotion, and research grants to curb issues related to the quality of research and predatory journals. The commission had highly advised that journals from the list be used for academic purposes, such that publications from non-listed journals would not be accepted as valid for academic assessment.
The UGC has suggested that: “Based on the suggestions of the expert committee, the Commission, in its 584th meeting on October 3, 2024, has resolved to stop UGC-CARE listing of journals and frame indicative parameters for selection of peer-reviewed journals.
The move to stop the UGC-CARE list of journals follows a number of criticisms of the system.
M. Jagadesh Kumar, UGC chairman, said: “Researchers and academicians had complained of over-centralisation in determining journal quality, delay in revising the list, and inclusion of predatory journals because of an ineffective screening process.”
In order to maintain research integrity, journals should ensure ethical publication standards, institute plagiarism checks with reasonable similarity limits, and enforce full disclosure of the interest conflicts among governance representatives, editorial boards, reviewers, and authors. Journals are also required to have well-articulated policies on the use of AI-generated information.
The UGC has also outlined parameters for assessing journal impact and visibility. These include impact factor, indexation in reputable databases, self-citation rates within acceptable limits, total citations, and cite scores over a defined period.
