EDITORIAL

Management of journals in times of crisis: an announced tragedy

Dalmo Valério Machado de Lima¹

¹Fluminense Federal University

The primacy of writing about the famous Greek tragedies is attributed to Aeschylus of Eleusis, 525/524 BC. It brings in its heart the great heroes of the fight against the whims of the gods, or even against the force of destiny. The classic structure of Greek tragedy is: prologue (an introduction that places the viewer in the work), parodos (the first entry of the choir), episodes (dialogues or follow-up action between the choirs), stasima (all interventions choir between episodes) and exodus (last intervention of the choir). Except in rare cases, all the tragedies are announced. And as the title of this editorial suggests, the management of journals is not part of this tiny discretionary group.

Prologue – The signs and symptoms of the global economic crisis, caused much due to the speculative capital and the end of commodities cycle which Brazil became dependent, showed up around the world. Add to this the political crisis that paralyzed the country, merged with the successive accusations of corruption and mismanagement of public funds.

Parodos - After a period of more than four decades of military dictatorship, Francisco Franco restored the monarchy in Spain in late 1970. In 1986, three years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Spain is accepted in the European Community. To ratify this rise to the modern capitalist world, Barcelona is “chosen” as the host city of the Olympic Games of 1992.

Unemployment in 2012 purposes reached 26%, and among young people below 25 years, this ratio reached 52%. Public debt amounted, according to the Spanish Central Bank, at 884 billion euros, which corresponds to approximately 84% of the Spanish GDP. In fact, the maximum limit of GDP debt in European Union is 60%. Education deteriorating, labor relations stagnant, scientific production declining, negligible structural legacies to cities, but... the games took place. Greece, meanwhile, took a not-so-different course. The country was invaded by Nazi troops during World War II, spent a period of military rule, received CIA help to depose the leader of the regimen, became part of the European Union in 1981, adopted the Euro as its currency in 2001 and hosted the Olympic Games in 2004. Today, Greece has a debt of 177% of gross domestic product (GDP), with a public debt in the euro zone that corresponds to 91.9% of GDP⁽¹⁾, and is near €300.000.000.000. Orthodox proposals for wage reduction and minimal state flourish, despite the quality of life and the entire history that was appropriated by the whole democratic world to lay the very foundations of its societies, but... the games took place.

In 2009, Rio de Janeiro was chosen to host the 2016 Games. The city is a real construction site of stadiums, bridges, highways, plazas, hotels ... contrasting with unemployment rates on the rise, late payment of public servers, hospitals closing due to lack of supplies and staff, violence at stratospheric levels, but the games will take place ... and what comes next? The following figures⁽²⁾ represent this concern very well:

Source: Index Mundi

Episodes - The year 2015 is quite emblematic regarding the deterioration of the development of research opportunities and scientific production in Brazil: CAPES PhD “sandwich” scholarships suspension⁽³⁾; successive budget cuts of R$79.4 billion in social areas, and of more than R$12 billion⁽⁴⁾ in the Ministry of Education; projected suspension of public job procurement, covering 40 389 positions reserved for “provision, admission or hiring”, referring to all the Federal Powers, the Public Ministry of the Union (MPU) and the National Council of the Public Ministry⁽⁵⁾; successive downgrade of the degrees of investment by international agencies^(6,7); reduction of institutional resources to support publishing; exclusion of Cochrane Library from the Virtual Health Library Portal since December 16th, 2015⁽⁸⁾; serious risk of suspension of Capes Journals Portal, which led to the elaboration of letter of appeal signed by the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science and other representative bodies to the Minister of Education and to the President of CAPES for the authorities' awareness about the importance of maintenance of this service⁽⁹⁾. All this conjectural weave and its implications in the publishing process of the scientific production, especially the Brazilian Nursing, was previously reported in an editorial of this journal in its fall issue of this year⁽¹⁰⁾.

Painting of the Battle of Thermopylae, fought between Persians and Spartans, led by King Leonidas I, in the year 480 BC.

Stasima - Notwithstanding the scenario painted in bright colors to fund the scientific publication in nursing in Brazil, catapulted by the new SciELO standards for inclusion and retention in its collection, as published in 2014⁽¹¹⁾, many journals, after repeated and unsuccessful meetings aimed to minimize the financial impact to this new scenario and SciELO requirements, finally fell to the established pressures, however boasting the lack of change in the fees charged to the authors. What we found in a short time space: double or triple rates for submission or publication of studies; creation of rates for assessment, with no value passed to the assessor; monopoly of publishing services provider for “international alignment”. With all this comes a phenomenon so predictable that we question the way it’s called, which is the multi-authoring. Rare items are signed for less than six authors, which is accepted by most journals and is definitely not a confirmation of a joint production or intra- or inter-institutional partnership, but simply a way of sharing the costs, in spite of ethical aspects so discussed in research.

Exodus - Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian modernist poet notes in his celebrated poem The Fighter⁽¹²⁾: “Fighting with words is the most pointless struggle, however we fight as soon as the morning breaks”. So the OBJN, the Aurora de Afonso Costa Nursing School and the Fluminense Fereal University continue to believe that the most sensible action to wade through this time of economic and political uncertainty is to maintain the collaboration between the journals, for the collaboration for construction and improvement of a low-cost matrix which allows the calculation of bibliometric measures; for optimization of scarce and qualified referees; to maximize, at low cost, the scientific production of Brazilian nursing; for the qualification and multiplication of new journal editors and, above all, to establish limits for interference of other actors on the publication of the scientific production of Brazilian nursing.

REFERENCES

1. 12 pontos para entender a crise grega. Folha de S. Paulo. São Paulo. 2015 jun 18 [cited 2015 Nov 6]. Available from:  http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/asmais/2015/06/1644556-7-pontos-para-entender-a-crise-grega.shtml

2. Index Mundi [ homepage ]. Dados históricos gráficos [ internet ] [ s.l. ] 2015. [ cited 2015 nov 23 ]. Available from: http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=94&c=br&c=sp&c=gr&l=pt

4. Brasil. Decreto nº 8.850, de 27 de novembro de 2015. Altera o Decreto no 8.456, de 22 de maio de 2015, que dispõe sobre a programação orçamentária e financeira, estabelece o cronograma mensal de desembolso do Poder Executivo para o exercício de 2015. Diário Oficial [ da ] República Federativa do Brasil. 2015 jul 30 [ cited 2015 Dec 22 ]. Available from:http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2015-2018/2015/Decreto/D8580.htm

5. Ministério do Planejamento (Brasil) [ homepage ]. Brasília; 2015 [ cited 2015 nov 10 ]. Available from: http://www.planejamento.gov.br/

6. Standard and Poors Rating Services [homepage]. Rating de crédito de emissor [ internet ]. [ s.l. ] 2015. [ cited 2015 Dec 18 ]. Available from:https://www.standardandpoors.com/pt_LA/web/guest/ratings/entity/-/org-details/sectorCode/SOV/entityId/109902

7. Fitch Ratings [ homepage ]. Ratings Soberanos [ internet ]. [ s.l. ] 2015. [ cited 2015 Dec 18 ]. Available from: https://www.fitchratings.com.br/sovereigns

8. Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde [ homepage ]. Exclusão da Biblioteca Cochrane da BVS [ internet ]. São Paulo, 2015 [ cited 2015 nov 26 ]. Available from: http://bvsalud.org/exclusao-da-biblioteca-cochrane-da-bvs/

PICTURE REFERENCE

David J. Leonidas at Thermopylae [ gravura ]. [ s.l ] 1814. [ cited 2015 Dec 20 ]. Available from: https://evaldolimasousa.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/

Received: 11/14/2015
Approved: 16/12/2015