Performance of Indonesian Scopus journals in the area of agricultural and biological sciences: a bibliometric study

Background In Indonesia, 1,264 publishers operate 7,410 scholarly journals accredited by the government, reflecting an increase of 23.71% from the previous data of 5,990 accredited scholarly journals [1]. Those journals are distributed as follows: 305 nationally reputable journals (4.12%) with an S6 accreditation, 2,099 journals (28.33%) with an S5 accreditation, 2,541 (34.29%) with an S4 accreditation, 1,369 (18.48%) with an S3 accreditation, 976 (13.17%) with an S2 accreditation, and 120 (1.62%) with an S1 accreditation (S1 indicates the highest level of accreditation for accredited journals in Indonesia). The journals indexed in the Scopus database are generally in the S1 category. Although there are many scholarly journals in Indonesia, the number of international journals is still not enough relative to the total number. It is usually said that Scopus, Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index journals are international journals. There may be enough room for science journals in Indonesia to be promoted to international journals. The Indonesian government has supported journal publication through the journal accreditation system [1], and there is a need for academic societies and institutes to upgrade their journals. To promote journals, the topic of articles is a major concern. Articles on recently emerging topics or those frequently dealt with are beneficial to journals to be read and cited by other researchers. Therefore, it is essential to find the major topics and other bibliographic trends in a specific research area. A bibliometric analysis is a good tool to answer these questions. In this essay, journals in the agricultural and biological sciences were analyzed because the number of journals in this area was the highest among all research areas of Indonesian journals listed in Scopus.