sciencemag.org SCIENCEPHOTO: JOE GIDDENS/PA WIRE/AP IMAGESNEWSSelf-citations sideline journals
PUBLISHING |Clarivate, the analytics firm
that provides the Web of Science database
of scientific publications, last week removed
33 journals from its annual report on
journal impact factors because of excessive
self-citations, which can artificially boost
their score. Although critics question the
importance of a journal’s impact factor and
the methodology for calculating the metric,
it remains widely regarded as an indicator
of quality. The 33 journals, many of which
are produced by the largest publishers,
were just a fraction of the more than 12,
in the annual report. Among the journalsI
n recent days, scientific institutions and groups have
changed the names of journals, prizes, and programs that
honor researchers who held racist views. On 3 July, Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory announced it had removed
the name of DNA co-discoverer James Watson from its
School of Biological Sciences, a request made on 21 June
by 133 Ph.D. students and alumni of the school. (They cited
repeated, racially offensive statements by Watson.)
Recent police killings of Black people and increased
recognition of institutional racism have prompted
many similar efforts. The University of Cambridge
decided on 24 June to remove a stained-glass win-
dow named after leading 20th century biostatisticianRonald Fisher, a prominent supporter of eugenics. On 3 July,
the board of the American Society of Ichthyologists and
Herpetologists voted to change the name of its flagship jour-
nal, Copeia, named after Edward Cope, a 19th century scientist
who described nonwhite people as “more ape-like.” The jour-
nal’s new name, Ichthyology and Herpetology, will debut with
the first issue of 2021. Also on 3 July, the Entomological Society
of America renamed its annual Linnaean Games, a stu-
dent trivia competition named after Carl Linnaeus, the
18th century botanist who invented the system used
worldwide to classify species but who also assigned
negative traits to nonwhite populations. The competi-
tion’s new title: the Entomology Games.IN BRIEF
Edited by Jeffrey BrainardRACIAL JUSTICETainted names are removed from places of honor
A worker removes
graffiti at the
University of
Cambridge aimed
at statistician
Ronald Fisher.122 10 JULY 2020 • VOL 369 ISSUE 6500excluded, self-citations made up between
26% and 71% of all citations in the 2-year
period Clarivate examined. Clarivate said it
would consider restoring the 33 journals to
its annual Journal Citations Reports if self-
citations decline. For now, the journals will
continue to appear in the Web of Science
database, but with no impact factor.Emergency money for NIH, Energy
FUNDING |Spending panels in the U.S.
House of Representatives this week
proposed a way to skirt tight budget
caps and award large increases to the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and theDepartment of Energy’s (DOE’s) national
laboratories for the next fiscal year. The
lawmakers want to give NIH a 13% hike, to
$47 billion, by adding $5.5 billion—all but
$500 million of it as emergency funding,
which is exempt from the caps. Similarly,
DOE labs would receive $6.2 billion in
emergency funds, justified by the COVID-
pandemic, for construction and upgrades,
while the science office budget would rise
by $50 million, to $7.05 billion in fiscal- But lawmakers did not use the mech-
anism to supplement the budgets of the
National Science Foundation, which would
get a 3% increase, or science programs at
NASA, which would be flat.