Bangladesh, as you understand, is a very small and highly populous country in South Asia, better known for its natural disasters and other climatic impacts. But we do research, and we do publish our journals. And you’ll be amazed to know that there are lots of journals being published from Bangladesh with support from the government.

Around the globe, scholarly journal publishing faces exhausting technological and cultural changes. Perhaps the last great change will remake publishing as a truly international endeavor by including authors and publishers from the nations of Asia, Africa and South America as well as Europe and North America.

Since 2016, Africa Journals Online and INASP (the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications) have developed detailed publishing standards and a publication quality ranking system intended to guide local researchers and editors and spotlight their work. JPPS – the Journal Publishing Practices and Standards – is a framework for providing accreditation and support for journals that are hosted on the Journals Online platforms (JOLs). These include BanglaJOL in Bangladesh as well as others in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mongolia and Latin America. JPPS has been shortlisted for the 2018 ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing, which will be announced on Thursday, September 13.

In Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, Dr. Haseeb Irfanullah has a prominent role in promoting local research – both as Programme Coordinator for theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature, and as executive editor of the Bangladesh Journal of Plant Taxonomy. Dr. Irfanullah has helped to develop a roadmap for improving Bangladeshi journal publishing and his efforts are already making a difference for BanglaJOL.

“Bangladesh, as you understand, is a very small and highly populous country in South Asia, better known for its natural disasters and other climatic impacts. But we do research, and we do publish our journals. And you’ll be amazed to know that there are lots of journals being published from Bangladesh with support from the government,” Dr. Irfanullah tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

“I often wonder if our journals might not be quite sure where their niches are. What’s the vision? What particular changes do they want to make in the particular discipline they’re talking about? Same goes for are we having an effective editorial board to help us with publishing those journals? Are we getting enough peer reviewers, because peer review system is one of the key issues that brings a journal up to international standards.”

“Researchers obviously aspire to be in the most well-recognized, the most famous of journals, but that’s a really difficult task, especially when you’re first starting out,” explained Sioux Cumming, INASP program specialist. “Perhaps a more achievable goal is to publish in a good journal in your own community.

“We feel very strongly that research that is done in these countries should be published within those countries, that it should be easily available and accessible within the country, because that also helps to improve the skills and the expertise of the publishing industry within those countries,” she adds.