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Brazilian engineering researchers have sought to increase their participation in the editorial process in journals in the field to tackle the challenges of publishing in scientific journals, such as meeting strict peer review criteria and ensuring greater international visibility through indexing in renowned databases. As a result, some of these journals have already been indexed in renowned databases, while others, such as Revista Polytechnica, are in the process of attracting researchers and achieving this goal.
Professor and former dean of Poli, José Roberto Castilho Piqueira, explains that a prestigious indexer, such as Scopus and Web of Science, reflects a journal’s relevance and gives the trajectory of the creation of the Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Automática as an example. “It began in the 1980s with the engagement of professors Plínio Castrucci from USP’s School of Engineering (Poli) and Celso Bottura from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). They had the vision that automatics would be an essential topic in engineering and that Brazil could have a Brazilian society of automatics.”
Professors Luiz Antônio Aguirre from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), José Raimundo de Oliveira (Unicamp), and José Reinaldo Silva from Poli also contributed to the development of the association’s journal. Around 2012, they started a movement to turn the Revista SBA, which had been local and had qualified content, into an international publication.
In a process that followed the trajectory of a growing number of citations and articles, and with the effort and work of the professors, including Ivan Nunes da Silva, from USP’s School of Engineering – São Carlos (EESC), the Brazilian journal became an international Springer journal. “Today this journal is indexed in the Web of Science with an impact factor greater than 1.5. Therefore, as a high quality international journal.” The current name of the journal is Journal of Control, Automation and Electrical Systems. According to Piqueira, all this effort has spread the Brazilian scientific community’s production in control and robotics to the world.
Engagement in the publishing process
Editor of the Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering since 2008, Reinaldo Giudici, dean of USP’s School of Engineering (Poli), evaluates around 800 articles received by the publication every year, as well as teaching and carrying out research. “It’s a task for both the editors – who work directly with the journal – and the reviewers of guest papers. It’s both sides of the coin. In order to publish, we also have to help keep the publications running.” In this process, the work of a reviewer gives the researcher greater interaction with the knowledge of their field, contact with other ideas, as well as learning from reading and criticizing the articles of colleagues. The editor, on the other hand, also gains in learning by coming into contact with a large number of journals.
The trajectory of the journal edited by Giudici, dedicated to chemical engineering, began with its publication on a completely open Brazilian database, Scielo. This meant looking for resources from development agencies, such as the São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp) or the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). The production work involved hiring printers and designers, as well as editing, analyzing the articles’ content and the opinions of the reviewers, and monitoring the decision to publish the articles. Faced with difficulties in raising funds, the model seemed unsustainable, so the association decided to transfer the publishing to a commercial publisher, Springer.
“Today, there is a huge debate about how to encourage open access, because science is made by disseminating and discussing ideas widely. This raises questions about how this system can be sustained in the long term,” says Giudici.
Polytechnica: the challenges of indexing
Edited by another Poli professor, Emílio Carlos Nelli Silva, Revista Polytechnica, created in 2018, may follow the same path. Today, it is indexed by Scopus, but it needs more articles and citations to join the Web of Science. “Polytechnica journal has every chance of taking off, given the diversity of the Poli community,” analyzes Piqueira.
Polytechnica’s idea is to address relevant engineering topics backed up with solid data and results, such as green energy, engineering education, or basic sanitation, within the context of a relevant issue. “How to provide mass electrification in a developing country? Or basic sanitation? They are proposals for solutions to this type of challenge,” Silva explains.
“We need associate editors in various areas because we have a large scope. In addition, attracting more people interested in submitting articles can be a challenge since the scope is not specific. It’s not easy to find researchers who focus on these issues more broadly, but there are many dedicated to these relevant topics. Our challenge is to reach them.”
The editor of Revista Polytechnica at Springer, Eduardo Goldani, says that the publishing is on a journey common to many others in the initial period, which is to increase the submission of articles in a context in which it is not yet indexed. Publishing at least 20 articles a year for two years is one of the challenges to achieving indexation. To this end, the editors are disclosing the journal’s proposal at scientific congresses and spreading the word about it. Goldani mentions the journal’s open access as an attraction for publishing articles, which can generate citations for the work.
“Polytechnica’s proposal is unique, it’s different. It’s not just about being a theoretical engineering journal, but about bringing articles that seek to develop society worldwide, as it’s an international journal published in English,” says Goldani. He also points out that the aim is not just to publish an engineering article but for the research performed by the author or group of authors to make a practical contribution that can bring about social development through engineering.
The journal is not entirely thematic, with half of the articles dedicated to a single subject and the rest varied, as long as they are in the direction of innovation and the major challenges facing engineering, even if they present research with concrete results but still in progress. The publication has already covered, for example, the relationship between engineering and medicine (vol. 3, No. 1-2) and the exploration and use of gas as an intermediate alternative in the energy transition (vol. 2, No. 1-2), as well as topics related to the advancement of automated manufacturing systems.
Access to Revista Polytechnica is open and can be done via this link.
Sourced from the Press Office of the School of Engineering
English version: Nexus Traduções
