The Government of Ukraine has approved the introduction of state financial support for the country’s leading scientific journals. The Cabinet of Ministers adopted a resolution amending the “Procedure for the Competitive Selection for Providing Financial Support to Ukrainian Scientific Journals Indexed in International Scientometric Databases” (No. 1032).

Until now, Ukraine’s best scientific journals had received no state financial assistance, despite the fact that many of them publish the works of Ukrainian researchers and postgraduates free of charge and meet the indexing requirements of major international databases such as Scopus and Web of Science. Managing such journals requires substantial effort, particularly for editorial boards that operate without author fees. In most cases, editorial work has been carried out on a voluntary basis for years or even decades. This often leads to staff burnout and turnover, putting both the quality and indexing status of the journals at risk — and, consequently, weakening Ukraine’s presence in the global research landscape.

Who Can Apply for Support

The competitive selection is open to scientific journals indexed in Scopus or Web of Science Core Collection, classified in Q1–Q4 quartiles according to SCImago Journal and Country Rank or Journal Citation Reports.

This change will cover nearly 200 Ukrainian journals with international indexing, including electronic (online) publications.

Earlier drafts of the resolution limited eligibility to Q1–Q2 journals only, restricting competition and excluding many high-quality journals from support.

A mandatory condition for participation is that the applicant must agree to publish articles by Ukrainian authors free of charge if awarded state support.

Sustainability and Inclusion of Online Media

The amended resolution removes the restriction that previously prohibited journals that had already received funding from reapplying. This will help ensure sustainability and foster the continuous development of the highest-quality journals.

Electronic scientific journals indexed in international databases will now also be eligible for funding on an equal basis with print journals.

How the Competition Will Work

The competition will be held annually. Winning journals will receive up to 350,000 UAH per year for two years.
In 2026, the government plans to support 19 journals, selected based on their 2025 quality and impact assessment. The Ministry of Education and Science (MES) is already preparing for the launch of the first competition.

Main Selection Criteria

Evaluation will consider the journal’s influence as determined by scientometric databases and rankings, including:

• For Web of Science Core Collection: Journal Impact Factor (JIF), JIF Rank, JIF Quartile, JIF Percentile, Journal Citation Indicator — for the past two years;
  
• For Scopus: CiteScore, CiteScore Rank, CiteScore Quartile, CiteScore Percentile, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), SJR Quartile, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) — for the past two years;
  
• Adherence to academic integrity;
  
• Compliance of editorial policies with principles of transparency, open access, and best publishing practices, as outlined by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, EASE, and for medical journals — WAME;
  
• Alignment with the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA);
  
• Inclusion in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and in Category “A” of the Ukrainian list of recognized academic journals;
  
• Commitment to Open Science principles, including the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC), Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA), and the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information;
  
• Absence of any collaboration with unethical organizations offering services such as ghostwriting, selling authorship or editorial membership, citation manipulation, or other dishonest publishing practices.
  

Why This Matters

Currently, only around 200 Ukrainian journals are indexed in Scopus and Web of Science, of which about 180 are ranked in Q1–Q4 quartiles. This number is far too small to ensure the wide dissemination of Ukrainian research results.

The adoption of this resolution is expected to:

• incentivize journals to improve their editorial policies and achieve international indexing;
  
• enhance the quality and visibility of Ukrainian research publications;
  
• and strengthen Ukraine’s presence in the European and global research space.

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