Reconstructing the Global Dynamic Evaluation System for Academic Journals

For decades, the global academic evaluation system has heavily relied on the impact factor and short-term citation counts as core criteria for journal ranking and research output assessment. Long-term operation of this framework has exposed structural, institutional and resource-related drawbacks. Rampant mutual citation among academic cliques, a flood of repetitive trivial studies occupying journal space, and the lack of retrospective accountability for erroneous publications collectively lead to massive waste of public research funds sourced from taxpayers across all nations. A unified reform consensus has emerged within the global academic community, represented by the DORA Declaration, the Leiden Manifesto and the CoARA reform alliance. These international frameworks advocate for a gradual reduction of weighting assigned to citation metrics, greater emphasis on long-term scientific value, and enhanced transparency of evaluation criteria. This paper proposes a new globally applicable journal evaluation system featuring phased dynamic weighting, multi-cycle retrospective review, standardized transparency and reputation-based self-regulation. The core reform logic avoids drastic one-step adjustments and adopts a staged gradient reduction of the weight assigned to impact factors and citation data. Two core dimensions — long-term scientific validity and groundbreaking original research value — dominate the scoring system, accounting for over 80% of total marks in the mature stage. A 3–5 year retrospective review mechanism is implemented to deduct points and downgrade journals that repeatedly publish outdated, flawed or non-innovative works. Meanwhile, flexible supervision is enabled through spontaneous academic scrutiny, partial public disclosure of scoring rules, and natural elimination of untrustworthy evaluation bodies based on market reputation. Instead of rigid mandatory regulation, the system relies on phased weight reduction, transparent evaluation standards, alignment with international reform guidelines and organic market screening to guide journals, conferences and evaluation institutions worldwide back to the essence of scientific inquiry. It gradually eliminates incentives for inflated citation metrics and low-quality repetitive publications, redirecting public research funding toward pioneering studies with lasting academic value.