Empirical examination of the journal scoring system of MTA Section IX (Economics and Law), based on data from 2020 and 2021

Abstract

During the habitus examination of Section IX (Economics and Law) at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), it can be observed that almost half of the points of all scientific publications along with the references made to them (between 250 and 300 points) must be obtained by publishing in domestic and international journals (120 or 160 points). Within this range, a minimum requirement was also formulated for internationally-listed items (35 and 40 points). International journal articles belonging to the same category (A, B, C or D), having the same number of co-authors and the same volume receive extra points between 33% and 200% in comparison to domestic articles. Based on an empirical sample research, it can be shown that social scientists actually receive more points by an average of 35% for an article of the same category and size but with a different number of co-authors, suggesting unreasonably low scores. Scores obtained in this way prove to be distorted and do not reflect the extra work that needs to be done when writing an international article, and as a result, the authors are not motivated to write international articles. However, international rankings, international visibility and the publication-based funding of universities operated by asset management foundations would require annually published articles in indexed journals (Scopus or Web of Science).