Novosibirsk State University scientists Elena Boldyreva and Sergey Adonin were included in the Publons website list of the best journal article reviewers and editors.
Since 2016 Publons, a division of Clarivate Analytics publishing, has been selecting the world's best scientific article reviewers. Officially, the site has four awards for outstanding performance: best reviewers, best editors, best journals, and the best reviewers in a scientific field. In 2018, the Publons website list of best reviewers and editors included 6,000 scientists from around the world.
The Top 1% in the scientific field categories were awarded to 20 Russian scientists. Among the best reviewers in "Chemistry" were Elena Boldyreva, Head of the Solid State Chemistry Section at the NSU Natural Sciences Department, leading researcher at the G. K. Boreskova Institute of Catalysis SB RAS, and Doctor of Chemical Sciences and Sergey Adonin, Lecturer at the NSU Institute of Medicine and Psychology, and Senior Researcher at the A.V. Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry SB RAS.
Boldyreva talked about what a reviewer does,
Working as an article reviewer is part of our profession. We help colleagues when we evaluate their work, suggest possible ways to improve it, and identify inaccuracies or obvious errors. Even though it takes a lot of time to review articles, it gives invaluable experience and broadens the mind. Of course, being invited to give a review is tangible recognition of your professionalism in this field.
Today, the quantity and quality of scientific articles is the main indicator of productivity and success for a scientist. The fact that Russian researchers are one percent of the most active reviewers in the world testifies not only to an improvement in the quality of their work, but also to their increasing importance in the global process of producing scientific knowledge.
Adonin, commented on current scientific trends,
Judging by the journals that I read regularly, there are many more Russian articles in chemistry. In some publications, the share of Russian authors has increased markedly. For example, in the journal Polyhedron (Elsevier), based on the number of articles from 2017 to today, we are in 4th place (after China, India and the USA). For the period 2013–2016, we were in 9th place. This associated to an increase in grant funding that requires reporting on new publications. People are gradually adapting to the new system, this is reflected in their increased publication activity.
