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Should we rely on journal impact factors in systematics and taxonomy?

In our recent study, led by Henrik Nilsson, we found that there is no clear relationship between journal impact factor and the discovery of new species hypotheses for the years 2000–2021. This suggests that funding agencies and hiring committees, which insist on upholding journal impact factors as a central criterion for funding and recruitment in systematic mycology, should consider using indicators such as research quality, productivity, outreach activities, review services for scientific journals, and teaching ability directly, rather than using publication in high-impact factor journals as a proxy for these indicators. Please check out this blog about our study for more details.