DORA

AnKa Publisher's Commitment to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

AnKa Publisher and its journals are proud signatories of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). By endorsing DORA, we reaffirm our commitment to responsible, transparent, equitable, and scientifically sound approaches to research assessment and scholarly publishing.

Why DORA Matters

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment was initiated during the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) in San Francisco on December 16, 2012. It emerged from a growing international consensus that the methods used to evaluate scientific research required fundamental improvement. Editors, publishers, researchers, funding organizations, and academic institutions recognized that excessive reliance on journal-based metrics—particularly the Journal Impact Factor (JIF)—had become detrimental to the fair assessment of scientific quality.

DORA was therefore established to promote a more meaningful evaluation of research by emphasizing the intrinsic merit of scholarly work rather than the prestige or citation performance of the journal in which it is published. Since its publication, DORA has evolved into a worldwide initiative supported by thousands of universities, funding agencies, scholarly societies, research institutes, publishers, and journals committed to responsible research assessment.

The Diversity of Research Outputs

Scientific research generates a wide spectrum of valuable outputs. While peer-reviewed research articles remain the cornerstone of scholarly communication, they represent only one component of scientific contribution. Modern research also produces datasets, software, computational tools, experimental protocols, educational resources, intellectual property, clinical innovations, and highly trained researchers whose work collectively advances science.

Accordingly, meaningful research assessment should recognize this diversity rather than relying exclusively on conventional publication metrics. DORA advocates that all significant scholarly contributions should be evaluated according to their scientific quality, originality, rigor, transparency, reproducibility, and real-world influence.

Moving Beyond Journal Impact Factors

One of DORA's central messages is that journal-based metrics should not be used as surrogate measures of the quality of individual research articles or the achievements of individual scientists.

The Journal Impact Factor was originally developed as a tool to assist librarians in selecting journals for institutional collections. It was never intended to evaluate individual papers, researchers, departments, or institutions. Over time, however, the metric has increasingly been used in hiring, promotion, tenure, funding, and institutional ranking decisions despite well-recognized methodological limitations.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that:

• citation distributions within journals are highly skewed, meaning that a journal's average citation rate poorly reflects the influence of individual articles;
• citation practices differ substantially across scientific disciplines, making direct comparisons inappropriate;
• journal metrics may be influenced by editorial policies and publication practices;
• many journal-level indicators lack complete methodological transparency;
• journal prestige cannot substitute for careful evaluation of scientific rigor, originality, reproducibility, or societal relevance.

For these reasons, AnKa Publisher fully supports DORA's recommendation that scientific work should be evaluated on its own merits rather than by the reputation or bibliometric indicators of the journal in which it appears.

Our Editorial Philosophy

The editorial policies of the journals published by AnKa Publisher are founded upon the principle that every manuscript deserves an independent and objective evaluation based solely on its scientific quality.

Editors and reviewers assess submissions according to criteria that include:

• originality and conceptual innovation;
• methodological rigor;
• scientific validity;
• ethical integrity;
• transparency of reporting;
• reproducibility where applicable;
• quality of interpretation and scholarly discussion;
• interdisciplinary significance;
• contribution to neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, medicine, and related disciplines.

Editorial decisions are never based on the expected citation performance of a manuscript, the prestige of previous publications by the authors, institutional reputation, nationality, seniority, or other non-scientific considerations.

Our Commitment as a DORA Signatory

By endorsing DORA, AnKa Publisher supports several fundamental principles of responsible research assessment.

We believe that:

• research should be evaluated according to its scientific content rather than journal-based metrics;
• hiring, promotion, tenure, and funding decisions should prioritize scientific quality over publication venue;
• diverse research outputs—including datasets, software, protocols, replication studies, negative findings, and educational resources—deserve appropriate scholarly recognition;
• article-level indicators and qualitative evidence often provide a more informative assessment of research influence than journal-level metrics alone;
• transparency, openness, reproducibility, and ethical conduct should be integral components of research evaluation;
• early-career researchers should be assessed fairly without undue emphasis on publication metrics or journal prestige.

Responsibilities of Editors, Reviewers, and Authors

Consistent with the principles articulated in DORA and international publishing standards set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), AnKa Publisher encourages all participants in the publication process to contribute to responsible research assessment and ethical integrity.

Editors are expected to make decisions based solely on scientific merit, adhering strictly to COPE guidelines for editors.

Reviewers are encouraged to evaluate manuscripts objectively and independently of publication metrics or perceived journal prestige, following the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

Authors are encouraged to practice responsible authorship, accurately describe individual contributions, appropriately acknowledge primary sources, share research materials whenever feasible, and embrace transparency in reporting methods and results, in alignment with COPE authorship standards.

We likewise support the development and responsible use of article-level metrics, open citation practices, and emerging approaches that provide a richer and more nuanced understanding of scientific impact.

Commitment to Continuous Improvement

Scientific publishing continues to evolve rapidly. As new forms of scholarly communication emerge—including open data, open software, preprints, registered reports, and reproducible research workflows—assessment practices must evolve accordingly.

AnKa Publisher remains committed to continuously improving its editorial policies in accordance with internationally recognized standards of publication ethics, research integrity, and responsible assessment. Our endorsement of DORA represents an ongoing commitment rather than a symbolic declaration.

We believe that the advancement of science depends upon evaluation systems that reward originality, methodological excellence, transparency, integrity, collaboration, and meaningful contributions to knowledge instead of simplistic numerical indicators.

By supporting the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, AnKa Publisher joins the global effort to create a more equitable, rigorous, and forward-looking system of scholarly evaluation—one in which scientific excellence is judged by the quality of the research itself and its enduring contribution to science and society.