Southeast European Studies in the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH)

In an attempt to identify and compare Humanities excellence at a supra-national European level, the European Science Foundation launched in 2001 its ERIH initiative. At present it is a reference index of the top journals in 15 areas of the Humanities, across the continent and beyond. Eventually ERIH will be extended to include book-form publications and non-traditional formats. Journals included in the lists are assigned to one of the three categories: A (high-ranking international publications with a very strong reputation among researchers of the field in different countries, regularly cited all over the world), B (standard international publications with a good reputation among researchers of the field in different countries) and C (research journals with an important local / regional significance in Europe, occasionally cited outside the publishing country though their main target group is the domestic academic community). The criteria used are listed at the European Science Foundation website. The initial lists that have been compiled so far are also available at the website.

Southeast European area studies were represented by specialized journals Ethnologia Balkanica. Journal of Southeast European Anthropology (B), Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans (B), Zeitschrift für Balkanologie (B), Balkanistika (Bulgaria)(C) and Balkansko ezikoznanie (Linguistique Balkanique) (C). Other periodicals of interest for scholars working in Southeast European studies, included in ERIH, are Slavic and East European Journal (A), Anthropology of East Europe Review (B) and Slavonic and East European Review (B). The majority of publications dealing with parts of the Southeast European area were assigned category (C). The exception - mysteriously - are hellenic studies which usually got category (B) and exceptionally also (A), for instance Journal of Hellenic Studies (A) and Ta Istorika (A). Not all journals of interest to scholars in Southeast European studies are included in ERIH.

Southeast European Studies on Web of Science

WEB OF SCIENCE is a database that includes a full range of disciplines and covers over 10,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide and over 110,000 conference proceedings and provides a citation index. It is the product of Thomson Reuters, "the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals". An overview of its sources showed that the social sciences dealing with Southeast European topics were much better represented than the humanities or linguistics. The relevant periodicals can be divided into three groups:

Periodicals explicitly targetting the Southeast European area:

SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN AND BLACK SEA STUDIES
JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN EUROPE AND THE BALKANS
JOURNAL OF BALKAN AND NEAR EASTERN STUDIES
BALKAN STUDIES
SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
BYZANTINOSLAVICA

Periodicals targetting Eastern Europe of which the Southeast can be seen as a part

SLAVIC AND EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL
SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN REVIEW
EAST EUROPEAN POLITICS AND SOCIETIES
OSTEUROPA
OSTERREICHISCHE OSTHEFTE
JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS
EAST EUROPEAN QUARTERLY
EASTERN EUROPEAN ECONOMICS

Periodicals specializing in parts of the Southeast European area

BULGARIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW-REVUE BULGARE D HISTOIRE
ANNALES-ANALI ZA ISTRSKE IN MEDITERANSKE STUDIJE-SERIES HISTORIA ET SOCIOLOGIA
BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK STUDIES
JOURNAL OF MODERN GREEK STUDIES
REVUE ROUMAINE D HISTOIRE
ROMANIAN REVIEW
ZIVA ANTIKA

Many more important journals will have to be included into this database before we could deem its coverage satisfactory.

Southeast European studies underrepresented in Scopus

Scopus, "the largest abstract and citation database of research literature and quality web sources", can be found at http://info.scopus.com/.

Here is what one of its users, Russ Schmehl (Tulane University, USA), says about it: "Scopus has three main benefits that make it excellent: 1. Literature/author searching is faster and easier. 2. Refinement: You can refine a search by selecting particular authors, years, journals or sub disciplines quickly and easily. 3. Search and report: You can set up Scopus to search for and send citations to you as new published works appear...covering an enormous number of publications."

Representation in databases like Scopus is getting more and more important for academics. My search of its list of periodicals (nearly 18,000 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers) discovered none of the publications that deal with our area as a whole. The closest to that among the journals actually listed in Scopus come Osteuropa, Slavonic and East European Review, South European Society and Politics and Studies in East European Thought. The only subfield which is relatively well represented is "Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies" featuring the journals Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Byzantion: Revue Internationale des Etudes Byzantines, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies and Journal of Modern Greek Studies.