In January 2026, Scopus updated the list of scientific journals that lost indexing due to non-compliance with the platform’s standards. In our article, you will find the full list of journals discontinued from indexing, as well as the reasons for their exclusion.
What are the reasons for journals being excluded from Scopus?
Scopus is one of the most authoritative scientometric databases and indexes only high-quality journals. Each month, database experts review journals for compliance with standards and discontinue indexing for those that fail to meet them to the greatest extent.
The key reasons for exclusion include the following:
- publication of articles with low scientific value or an insignificant contribution to the development of science
- violations of the principles of academic integrity (plagiarism, self-plagiarism, etc.)
- suspicious changes in scientometric indicators (for example, a sharp increase in the number of publications or citations), which are detected by the Radar system
- non-compliance with Scopus standards (weak peer review, low quality of research, lack of scientific novelty)
- changes in the journal’s policy (lowering requirements for submissions, an abrupt change of scope, etc.)
List of scientific journals excluded from Scopus in January 2026
| No. | Scientific journal | ISSN / e-ISSN | Reasons for exclusion |
| 1 | Architecture Image Studies | eISSN: 21848645 | Journal change policy |
| 2 | Contemporary Mathematics | 27051064 / 27051056 | Discontinuation |
| 3 | Internaional Neurological Journal (Ukraine) | 22240713 / 23071419 | Discontinuation |
| 4 | Journal of Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry Research | ISSN: 29810221 | Discontinuation |
| 5 | Journal of New Materials for Electrochemical Systems | ISSN: 14802422 | Journal change policy |
| 6 | Premier Journal of Science | eISSN: 30499011 | Discontinuation |
| 7 | Reliability: Theory and Applications | eISSN: 19322321 | Discontinuation |
How are journals monitored in Scopus?
Scopus continuously monitors indexed journals to maintain high quality standards. The Radar system plays a key role in this process – a special automated algorithm developed by Elsevier. It analyses a large number of scientometric indicators and detects changes such as:
- artificial inflation of citation counts
- publication of materials that have not undergone peer review
- a significant deviation from the declared scientific scope
- the absence of an appropriate peer-review system
- violations of publication ethics principles
- a low level of publication quality or an insufficient number of publications
If the Radar system detects suspicious behaviour, the journal moves to a stage of more rigorous assessment, as a result of which it may be discontinued from indexing.
Recently, Scopus updated and consolidated the reasons for journal exclusions that appear in the official lists. Instead of labels such as Publication Concerns, Outlier behaviour, or Radar, which were widely used previously, most new discontinuations are now marked as Discontinuation (coverage discontinued) and Journal change policy (journal policy change). Thanks to a high level of assessment, the Scopus database maintains its authority and reliability, as well as the high quality of scientific journals.
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