Yesterday, the annual SCI journal impact factors were published, and I also downloaded them and looked at the impact factors of mainstream academic journals in my field. And in the personal wechat circle of friends published such an exclamation: general rise, universal celebration. In recent years, the impact factors of journals are basically basically the same as real estate, and the bubble is increasing. Ten years ago, the journals in my field were more than 0.5, and only a few authoritative journals were more than 1.0. The impact factors of J mater SCI Technol, J iron steel res int and t nonferr metal SOC China were all around 0.2. Now everyone has changed. It is particularly worth mentioning that the impact factor of jmst journal this year has reached 3.6. In my field, it is only the fifth place compared with Acta mater, Coro SCI, SCR mater and j alloy compd. According to this development speed, one of the three journals with the highest impact factor in the field should be able to achieve it in the next two years.

The high impact factor of journals indicates that the operation level of journal publishing house is relatively high and the promotion ability is relatively strong. Of course, it also indicates that the amount of papers read is relatively large. At the same time, with the improvement of journal impact factor, many authors intend to contribute their excellent papers to these journals, thus further developing these journals. However, there are many influencing factors of journal influencing factors, such as the number of papers published in a year, the proportion of review papers in published papers, the number of non academic content published in journals, the promotion ability of journal publishers, and so on. Therefore, during the heated discussion of impact factors, I raised the question of whether experts will check the SCI impact factors of journals in the process of NSFC evaluation? Here are some of my personal views as an "expert" in fund evaluation.

1. The impression of papers published in classic journals is far better than that of journals with high impact factor. In the process of fund evaluation, although the main purpose is to examine the scientificity, innovation and enforceability of the research content of the fund, a book is the most beautiful, scientific and innovative. If the evaluation experts think that the applicant is not the right person to carry out the scientific research idea, and even doubt that the applicant has no ability to do a good job in this subject, such a book will not work It's funded. Therefore, the author's previous papers are very important. Usually, if an author publishes two or three papers in a journal that I personally recognize, he will feel that the applicant's research foundation is good, so that he can finish the work excellently. And what kind of journals are "approved" by experts? I think it varies from person to person, but older reviewers must recognize "classic journals" rather than "journals with high impact factor". Classic journals generally do not pursue the impact factors of journals excessively. They have a group of loyal old authors and readers. They don't pursue "hot issues" completely. They usually choose to publish papers strictly to avoid the reputation damage of journals. Some people think that the papers published in these "classic journals" may become hot spots even if they are not cited today and will be cited in a few years. On the contrary, when editors of some journals select papers, they only select papers in hot areas. Even if the level of papers is average and there are more people doing it, the citation can follow. Therefore, under the background that everyone in the academic circle knows what the impact factor is and what the citation is, the status of classic journals in the minds of reviewers has been further consolidated.

2. The impression of minority professional academic journals is far better than that of journals with a lot of papers. The number of papers published in many academic journals of minority specialties is relatively stable. For small fields, about 100 papers are published every year. For large fields, hundreds of papers may be published (but compared with other related journals, the number of papers published is much less). The number of papers published in journals is relatively small, and the proportion of papers with water content is relatively small. Therefore, the reputation of journals can be guaranteed. Some journals publish thousands or even tens of thousands of papers a year. Of course, there are many high-level papers in them. However, if there are too many papers published, there will inevitably be a small number of general level papers, which will damage the reputation of journals. It's hard to say good or bad about word-of-mouth. I personally feel that everyone's papers are not the same. However, in the era when only 10 representative works were listed in the fund application process, it's totally unnecessary to put those "popular goods" on the list. On the contrary, even if the impact factor of minority journals is much lower, it is easier to be recognized by experts in the process of fund evaluation.

3. Domestic important Chinese journals are not lower than foreign common SCI journals. In the past few decades, SCI journals have had a great impact on the domestic academic ecology, and the quality of manuscripts of many domestic established journals has been somewhat reduced. However, the impression of domestic important journals on fund evaluation experts should still be very good. When I was a graduate student, I was able to translate my Chinese papers into English papers, and I was able to turn a Chinese core journal into an "SCI" International Journal. What's more funny is that some of my senior brothers submitted their papers to Chinese journals first, and then they were rejected, but they had no choice but to translate them into English. Finally, they published them in international SCI journals. Although I have heard that the quality of papers published in domestic Chinese journals has declined in recent years, I think the quality of important Chinese journals will be relatively guaranteed. In addition, SCI journals are becoming more and more popular, and new journals emerge one after another every year. Therefore, the weight of important Chinese journals in the hearts of fund evaluation experts should be guaranteed.

SCI impact factors have gone up or down, or have been suspended, or have been kicked out. More attention is paid to "young teachers" and "doctoral and master students". The influence factors of SCI may affect their professional title promotion and whether they can successfully graduate or get high scholarship. As for the application for NSFC, there is no place to show "SCI impact factor" on the application. Therefore, the fund review experts may not check the impact factor of last year and change the "first impression" of the application for NSFC.