The budget is only growing, academics are not heard alive

The Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU) has two departments in which almost no member meets the requirements for election to the position of assistant professor at the University of Montenegro (UCG), according to research by "Vijesti" about the scientific contribution of academics on the international scientific scene.

When it comes to social sciences, Veselin Vukotić is the most prominent member of CANU, and his works, which were published in journals indexed in the world's largest database, were created before he became an academic.

The question arises as to what kind of scientific and research projects taxpayers' money is invested in if the results of those researches are not visible on the world map, and to whom does CANU turn, especially in terms of social sciences and humanities, if not to the world public to learn something about Montenegro.

The budget is only growing, now it is almost 2 million

By law, CANU is the highest scientific and artistic institution in Montenegro. Research by "Vijesti" showed that the scientific contribution of a large number of CANU academics on the international scene is almost invisible, as well as that a small number of academics have published works in the database of the most eminent scientific journals in the world. This is especially true for departments of social sciences and humanities. CANU is financed from the budget, and for the year 2019 alone, 1,9 million euros have been allocated for the functioning of that institution. The budget for CANU has grown every year since 2012, when it amounted to 1,14 million euros.

Search by name for the entire database

In order to determine how many academic papers each of the CANU academics has published in relevant international scientific journals - with the exception of academics from the Department of Arts who are evaluated according to other criteria - a search by author name was performed for the entire database, as of December 31, 2018. Yes in order to get a more complete picture of the non-productivity in departments for social and humanistic disciplines, after searching the entire database, papers published in the proceedings of important international gatherings (Conference Proceedings Citation Index) and journals that were considered for entry into the WoS database were excluded from the search criteria. (Emerging Sources Citation Index), which is a multi-year procedure of rigorous analysis and evaluation.

Department of Social Sciences

When it comes to the Social Sciences Department of CANU, only Veselin Vukotić with 3 papers and newly elected member Zoran Stojanović with one title are present at the WoS. No other academic has published work in any internationally relevant scientific journal, which makes their work almost invisible to the world scientific public. Moreover, when works published in the proceedings of scientific meetings (as in the case of Vukotić) and journals that are in the process of consideration for inclusion in WoS (as in the case of Stojanović's work in the journal "Sociologija") are excluded from the search, there remains only Vukotić with two titles in the journal "Panoeconomicus" which has an impact factor of 0,44 for the year 2017, which positions it only in 307th place out of 353 ranked journals in the field of economics for that year. His first paper was cited a total of six times in other relevant units in the WoS database (of which, four times in "Panoeconomics" itself), and the second not once.

What is interesting is that Vukotić published both papers before becoming an academician (in 2008 and 2011), while after joining CANU, his productivity of publishing in relevant international scientific journals was reduced to the average of the Department of Social Sciences - zero.

Department of Humanities

The situation in the Department of Humanities is even worse. Only Zoran Lakić with two titles in proceedings from international conferences, Niko Martinović with one paper in the journal "Lingua Montenegrina" and newly elected member "Siniša Jelušić" with one paper in the journal "Folia Linguistica et Litteraria" are represented at WoS. None of the mentioned works has been cited in the journals in the database even once. However, when papers from scientific gatherings and those published in journals in the process of consideration are excluded from the search (currently "Lingua Montenegrina" and "Folia Linguistica et Litteraria"), we are faced with the fact that not a single academic from the Department of Humanities has a paper published in eminent scientific journals.

Department of Natural Sciences

When it comes to the Department of Natural Sciences, the results are significantly better, although a good part of the works were published before they became academics. The large amount of results and checking of authorship individually, due to the possibility of the same names and surnames of several scientists, determined that the search is done "roughly" for the entire WoS database, according to the model "surname, first name of the author", after which the collection of papers and citations is displayed. That is why a slightly higher number of works displayed than the real situation is possible, not only because of overlapping names, but also because the search system knows that, for example, under "Stanković, Ljubiša" it indexes some authors in the same scientific discipline who signed the work as "Stanković, L.”, which, for example, could be “Stanković, Lina”. This does not change the fact that the members of this department are drastically different from other CANU members, so these figures should not be taken only as an indicator of the visibility of "naturalists" on the world scientific scene, but also as an indicator of the non-productivity and irrelevance of the members of the department for social sciences and humanities.

When the names of academics from this department are entered, roughly the following results are obtained: Ranislav Bulatović has 24 papers with 37 citations; Petar Vukoslavčević – 27 papers with 420 citations; Perko Vukotić – five papers with 43 citations; Igor Đurović – 166 papers with 2.276 citations; Milojica Jaćimović – 12 papers with 23 citations; Gordan Karaman – 14 papers with 1.699 citations; Vlado Lubarda – 111 papers with 3.057 citations; Predrag Miranović – 42 papers with 1.047 citations; Goran Nikolić – 257 papers with 1.247 citations; Ljubiša Stanković – 311 papers with 4.378 citations; Svjetlana Terzić – 46 papers with 487 citations; Vukić Pulević has only one paper (without citations) in the domestic journal "Lingua Montenegrina" which is taken into consideration. New member Vaso Antunović has seven papers with 124 citations.

The current president of CANU, Dragan K. Vukčević, like his predecessor, Momir Đurović, does not have any work published in a journal on the WoS list.

The experience of UCG

UCG is committed to ensuring that its academic staff publishes "scientific works that are recognized by the international and domestic public as a significant contribution to science" and that as such "are set as one of the criteria for selection into the profession". This includes those scientific research works that are "published in international journals located in renowned international databases (SCI/SCIE/SSCI/AHCI)". Accordingly, a person who must have at least one paper published in an international journal indexed in WoS can be elected to the position of assistant professor. In order to advance to the position of associate professor, he must, among other things, publish two more papers. And for the election to the title of full professor, at least two more. Therefore, for selection to the title of assistant professor, at least one paper is required, and for selection to the title of full professor, at least five works published in journals indexed in WoS.

Ten million researchers publish their work annually

According to some estimates, there are around two million academic journals in the world. Every year, about 10 million researchers publish research results in them, and due to such productivity, the evaluation of scientific research work is a real challenge. For decades, the most prominent scientific journals have been indexed - from 1900 to the present day - in a database called the Web of Science (WoS). The platform is run by Clarivate Analytics, formerly a Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property and Science Business.

According to the Law on CANU, the national academy is the highest scientific and artistic institution in Montenegro, of special national and state interest. The Academy unites scientific potential, organizes, encourages and develops scientific, artistic and cultural creativity, affirms the Montenegrin spiritual, national and state tradition from Duklja to modern Montenegro and contributes to the overall progress of the state of Montenegro through its activities. CANU is financed from the state budget.

Rigorous quality control of the magazine

As a rigorous control of the stability of the academic quality of the indexed units is carried out every year - which means that some journals are eliminated, while others are included in the database - on WoS, an average of about 30.000 titles from all fields of science are indexed every year: from natural and technical to social and humanistic disciplines. This includes proceedings from leading international conferences, patents, etc. Journals are divided into four categories: SCI (Science Citation Index) and SCIE (Science Citation Index Expanded), which cover natural and technical sciences, SSCI (Social Sciences Citation Index), which covers social sciences, and AHCI (Arts and Humanities Citation Index) - humanistic disciplines. There are also journals that are not on any of these lists, but were included in the multi-year evaluation for indexing in the database (Social Sciences Citation Index).

In each discipline individually, indexed journals are ranked based on the impact factor. The numerical value of the impact factor is obtained by dividing the number of citations for the last two years by the number of published papers in those two years. As they vividly explain at KoBSON: "The American Economic Review magazine was cited 2006 times in all papers from referenced journals in WoS published in 5.913." Of that number, works published in 584 were cited 2005 times, and works published in 2.186 were cited 2004 times. In 2005, that journal published 148 papers, and in 2004, 193 papers. Then its impact factor is calculated as follows: (584 + 2186)/(148 + 193)= 8,12. So, the impact factor of the American Economic Review magazine for 2006 is 8,12. The impact factor calculated in this way eliminates the differences that could have arisen as a result of greater periodicity (more issues per year) or the length of the periodical's exposure".