Effect of cooperation between Chinese scientific journals and international publishers on journals’ impact factor

Growing cooperation between Chinese journals and international publishers invites an investigation of the effect of this cooperation, based on an analysis of journal IF changes. Data from 23 Chinese academic journals were chosen from about 50 English-language academic journals indexed by SCI or SCIE and with a long history of cooperation. The data do not suggest that cooperation has improved the journals’ IF thus far. It appears that cooperation is generally limited to international distribution, and this has a weak influence on the quality of the journal and its IF, even though the papers can be accessed by worldwide users through publishers’ international distribution networks. Cooperation with international publishers is one step, but actively working on the quality of the journals is a more important step.