Trash journals in China

Abstract

Over the last two decades, China has seen an enormous rise in the number of scientific journals, second only to the USA. However, their overall academic level has not been high as expected. In fact the frequent occurrence of ‘trash’ journals has been a very negative development. In this regard, we will define trash journals and analyze their characteristics. In addition, we explore how such journals come into existence and look at their relationship with ‘legal’ journals. The development of trash journals is directly associated with market demand and profit, and a flawed academic evaluation system. We advocate action by government departments to purge academia of trash journals and give examples of how this could be done.