Call for the Publication Forum panel members for term 2022-2025 is open.
This year the Publication Forum (JUFO) will appoint new expert panels for the term 2022-2025.
If you are a researcher working in a Finnish university or research institute and you are interested in being a panellist, please fill in the application form no later than 31st of July 2021.
You will be asked to provide some background information, such as your degree and field of science, as well as reasoning why you want to work as a panellist.
The panellists are chosen from amongst academics with experience in research, scholarly publishing and research evaluation. In appointing the panellists, the main concern is to ensure that the expertise of the panels covers the research fields they are responsible for. Attention is also paid to a fair representation of women and men, advanced and early career researchers, as well as different organisations in the panels. The panellists are representatives of the national scientific community in their respective field of study, and they are also expected to consult their background communities.
In appointing the panels, the aim is to have about half of the panel members from the previous terms and the other half to be new panellists. If a person has already been a member of the evaluation panel for two consecutive terms, i.e. from 2014 to 2021, he or she can only continue the third term if he or she is elected as a chairman. Those who have already acted two terms as a chair cannot continue in the panels for the term 2022-2025. Membership of the editorial team or board of a magazine or publisher is not an obstacle to the panel membership, but panellists are required to indicate their affiliations when evaluating publication channels.
The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies has also requested proposals from universities, government research institutions, academies and learned societies. These proposals are taken into account in the selection of the panellists, but a researcher can stand for election, even if no organization has recommended her or him.
The candidates will be informed about the selection in October 2021.
Panel work
Work of the new panels will begin in early 2022 with an inaugural meeting. During the first year, a review of ratings will be carried out, i.e. a re-evaluation of level 2 and 3 publication channels. The review of ratings is carried out every four years, and in the intervening years the panels can only make individual corrections to levels 2 and 3.
In addition, during the years 2022-2025, the panels will be responsible for complementary evaluations of the new and previously non-evaluated publication channels for level 1. New publication channels are proposed by the scientific community and they are also identified from the publication data collection of research organisations. Complementary evaluations are carried out throughout the year, but the number of channels to be evaluated is highest in April-May.
The complementary evaluations are done online through the JUFO portal. In addition, the panels meet 3-4 times during the first year, and twice a year during the rest of the panel term. The meetings last 1-3 hours and are held remotely online or, if needed, at the House of Science and Letters in Helsinki. The panellist's background organisations are responsible for their travel expenses.
Those wishing to become a panellist should be prepared to spend a few hours a month on evaluation work, and keep in mind that the review of ratings for levels 2 and 3 requires more work during the first year of the panel term. The evaluation of channels is deadline-bound. In particular, the chair and vice-chair are required to be able to commit to schedules.
Publication Forum
Publication Forum (often referred to as JUFO) is a classification system to support the quality assessment of research output. To account for the different publication cultures characteristic of various disciplines, the classification includes academic journals, book series, conferences as well as book publishers. The classification provides information on the impact of academic publication channels and the appreciation they enjoy within the scientific community. The objective is to encourage Finnish researchers to publish their findings in high-level domestic and foreign forums. Since 2015, the classification has been used as a quality indicator of the research output produced by universities within the university funding model established by the Ministry of Education and Culture.
The evaluation of publication channels is performed by 23 discipline-specific expert panels composed of some 250 distinguished Finnish or Finland-based scholars. The panels are instructed by the Publication Forum Steering Group which is composed of experts representing the academic disciplines as well as The National Library of Finland, Ministry of Education and Culture, Academy of Finland, Council for Finnish University Libraries, CSC – IT Centre for Science, Universities Finland UNIFI and Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV). The Publication Forum secretariat is responsible for the preparation and coordination of the Steering Group’s and the panels’ work.
Further information:
E-mail: julkaisufoorumi@tsv.fi
Contact: https://julkaisufoorumi.fi/en/publication-forum/contact
More information on Publication Forum panels.
Publication Forum self-evaluation report (PDF).
Photo: Panel 17 meeting in 2019.
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