Editorial

Upon finishing one more year for REM, I would like to comment on a small reflection of mine. It seems that after thirty years of heading this publication, I am still surprised to find that the job of science editor still has the same problems of previous decades, although information technology has greatly improved the demands of this function.

Although the SciElo site informs the number of accesses to our publication, around a5.3 million, our impact factor is still low which prompted Thomson Reuters to remove REM from its measuring system:

The journal was removed from our database in 2014 because of a very low Impact Factor and relatively high journal self-citation rate. The journal can be submitted to us for reevaluation in January 2017.

This alert demonstrated the need to precisely review the errors which led to this removal. We have since reinvented our publication with concrete measures being implemented to overcome this situation.

In an article recently published in the VEJA magazine (February, 2016), Cláudio de Moura Castro elaborates the matter of Brazil's scientific isolation: Faced with the imperatives of this situation, our science efforts suffer because of reduced internationalization. In fact, in our studies that compare the performance of the universities, what pulls the values down is isolation. We are still insecure beginners and subject to missteps. Productivity is low and the scientific dogma conversion is not so solid. We always need to return to the sources, the large arrays of scientific creation. We have to be vaccinated against mediocrity, arrogance and narrow-mindedness.

Mine is an arduous task that involves choosing new editors and referees who have to be introduced to the way the system functions in order to organize and control the flux of articles; so many behind-the-scene activities often unknown to the readers.

But it is good to show a little of this process so that in doing so, the importance of expertise in the production of a technical-scientific publication can be registered; especially since this is not always known by those who do not participate in the activities of this area.

Prof. Jório Coelho
Editor-in-Chef Doctor Engineer by Polytecnique Institute of Lorraine-France
Retired professor of Federal University of Ouro Preto - School of Mines-Department of Geology
E-mail: [e-mail]
35400-000 - Ouro Preto - BR

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Oct-Dec 2016