Profiling Brazilian scientific journals

Resumen

In October 2024, Capes issued an official note outlining changes in the evaluation methodology for national scientific output. To understand the potential impact of this change on Brazilian education and science, we sought to profile Brazilian scientific journals, to estimate how many journals exist and how many are indexed in each of the databases cited in Lattes curricula: SciELO, WoS, and Scopus. We also stratified the findings per knowledge area. We observed that concerning the number of indexed journals, "Interdisciplinary Studies," "Applied Social Sciences," "Human Sciences," and "Linguistics, Literature, and Arts" are at a significant disadvantage compared to "Exact and Earth Sciences" and "Health Sciences". We also observed that the vast majority of Brazilian scientific journals are not indexed in either database, which might result in lower attractiveness for authors. We hope that our findings may provide additional information on how Capes’ new evaluation criteria may affect Brazilian journals and the production and dissemination of national scientific knowledge, and whether national journals will actually benefit from this decision.