Classification of scientific publication channels: Final report of the Publication Forum project (2010–2012)

In the university funding model used by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2010–2012, scientific publications constitute one criterion accounting for about 2% of the appropriated funding. The academia has criticised both the current and the precedent model for the fact that the decisive factor is the number of publications, not their quality. The question of including the quality of the publications among the funding criteria was taken up by the Finnish Council of University Rectors, UNIFI which instituted its own working group for the purpose. In 2009, the group drafted a plan to develop the quality assessment of scientific publications.

The working group proposed that Finland should follow the Norwegian and Danish examples and create “a system to improve the quality assessment of scientific publications, based on a publication
forum”, in other words a classification system for scientific journals, publication series and book publishers. The Publication Forum project was officially launched in May 2010 by TSV who also appointed the
project Steering Group and Secretariat. Starting on 1 August 2010, the project closure was set at 29 February 2012.