El año que nos volvimos insostenibles: Análisis de la producción española en Sustainability (2020)

• Published in: El profesional de la informacion 2021-07
• Main Authors: Repiso, Rafael, Merino-Arribas, Adoración, Cabezas-Clavijo, Álvaro
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1386-6710; 1699-2407
• DOI: 10.3145/epi.2021.jul.09

The journal Sustainability, published by MDPI, was the journal that published the most papers by researchers from Spanish institutions in 2020. This justifies a detailed examination of the Spanish scientific production in this journal. At the same time, the work of editing monographic issues in which papers with Spanish authors have been published is analyzed. For this purpose, we have identified whether each paper belongs to regular or to special issues of the journal, identifying whether the author of the paper is also editor of the monograph, or a university colleague. The nationality of the editors was also studied. The subject matter of the articles and their belonging to the area of the journal were analyzed. Most of the papers published by Spanish authors were published in special issues (81.6%), mainly edited by authors of the same nationality (63.1%). It is also found that there is an important production carried out by the same editor of the monograph, or by colleagues from the same institution. It is also found that a substantial number of works published in Sustainability (42.3%) have minimal or no relationship with the subject of sustainability. Finally, the implications of these findings are discussed under the light of the publication strategies of Spanish researchers and the science evaluation policies applied in Spain. The main controversial aspects identified have to do with the publication of papers on other subjects, the value of publishing in monographs, which in some cases could be considered as inbreeding, and the short editing times. Resumen La revista Sustainability, de la editorial MDPI, fue en 2020 la revista que publicó más trabajos de investigadores de instituciones españolas. Esto justifica un examen detallado de la producción científica española en dicha revista. Se analiza también la labor de edición de números monográficos en los cuales se han publicado trabajos con autores españoles. Para ello se ha identificado la pertenencia de cada trabajo a números especiales y a números regulares de la revista, identificando si el autor del trabajo es también editor del monográfico, o compañero de universidad. Igualmente se estudia la nacionalidad de los editores. Se analiza la temática de los artículos y su pertenencia al área de la revista. La mayor parte de los trabajos publicados por autores españoles se difundieron en números especiales (81,6%), principalmente editados por autores de la misma nacionalidad (63,1%). Se ve asimismo