ITMO Authors

RSCI

2025-07-24 15:39
In one of our earlier texts, we wrote about the eLIBRARY platform and the related projects: an electronic library, a national scientometric database of Russian scientific publications, and one more database of reputable Russian journals, namely, the RSCI. In this note, we will take a closer look at the RSCI project - Russian Science Citation Index, which in the future may become an analogue of Scopus and Web of Science for the Russian segment of global science.

The origin of RSCI

The Web of Science platform has an indisputable authority in the global scientific community. It indexes scientific journals and patents.
Including national databases i n the platform and tracking mutual citations between papers can improve the visibility of national scientific journals in the international information environment. Thus, in 1989, the Chinese Science Citation Index was developed, then the Korean Science Citation Index appeared in 2008. In 2013 SciELO was integrated into WoS, covering works from Latin American countries, and in 2020 the Arabic Citation Index was launched.
In 2014, negotiations about the “Russian bookshelf” in WoS began. The Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) became the result of cooperation between the Russian Academy of Sciences and Clarivate Analytics. The Index was also implemented on the eLIBRARY.RU platform.

What is the difference between RSCI and “RINTS”?

The “RINTS” database - Rossijskij Index nauchnogo tsitirovanija, (Russian Index of Science Citation) - indexes over 4,000 Russian journals and aims to provide the most comprehensive coverage of all publications by Russian scientists. However, it is the works of the highest value that are selected in the RSCI. Inclusion of a journal, an author or an academic institution in the latter is supposed to be a quality marker of scientific research.
The RSCI contributed to:
1. Improving the quality of Russian scientific journals by aligning them with international standards.
2. Raising bibliometric indicators of Russian journals in the Web of Science and the integral indicators of Russia by identifying links to Russian-language versions of journals and increasing the global visibility and citation of Russian journals.
3. Creating a system for assessing the quality of scientific journals that combines using bibliometric information and expert estimation.
4. Improving the system for assessing scientific activity.

RSCI today

In 2015, the best Russian scientific journals, selected in two stages based on bibliometric indicators and expert assessment, appeared on the “Russian bookshelf” in Web of Science. In 2022, this collection was deleted from the platform, however, the project itself still exists.
Currently, the collection includes about a thousand titles. The list gets updated every six months (in November and in May).
The collection is available on the eLIBRARY.RU platform in the "Journals" section, by checking the search option "included in the RSCI database".

How does a journal become part of RSCI

The eLIBRARY platform provides an opportunity for the editor to apply for inclusion of a journal in the RSCI. At the first stage of selection, it has to meet the following formal criteria:
  • to be one of the top 1500 journals according to the current SCIENCE INDEX rating or the Public Expertise rating, or to be currently included in one of two databases: Web of Science Core Collection or Scopus;
  • to have unique digital EDN codes, which are assigned to all documents on the eLIBRARY.RU platform;
  • to be represented on the eLIBRARY.RU platform along with reviews for the current and one previous year.
At the second stage of selection, a Working Group of experts is involved. They evaluate the following parameters of the journal:
  • scientific level based on the content analysis;
  • relevance;
  • stability – assessment of the homogeneity of articles' quality in the journal issues;
  • credible editorial board;
  • ethics – low level or absence of peer reviews, self-citation, manipulation of indicators, plagiarism, and other violations;
  • appropriate design – availability of a full set of metadata in the RSCI: abstracts and keywords in English; DOI, proper citation style, and other details.
Databases