Sir

The assessment of research in Spanish universities, and the (lack of) consideration of scientific qualifications in appointing tenured faculty members have been the subject of commentary in Nature on several occasions1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Commendably, the Catalonian government has now published a proposal for assessing individual research performance in social sciences and humanities (http://www.gencat.es/dursi/sisav.htm ). This has been drafted by a panel of experts and faculty members, who have been holding meetings since 1997.

The proposal includes a four-category ranking of journals in psychology and related fields (http://www.gencat.es/dursi/sisav_i_12.htm). The top category reportedly includes top-quality international journals with the highest impact indices in their fields, whereas the bottom category includes journals lacking a rigorous peer-review process.

Notably missing are journals such as Nature, Science, Vision Research, Visual Neuroscience, Spatial Vision or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, to name but a few — although the top category includes the hitherto-unknown “Nature Neuropsychology”. Also in the top category is “Journal of Experimental Psychology Human” while the bottom category lists “Journal Experimental Perception Performance”. One wonders whether the genuine Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance would have fallen into the top or bottom category if it did appear.

Again, the top category contains “Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning”, whereas “Journal Experimental Psychology Learning Memory Cognition” only makes it into the bottom category. Where would Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition have appeared?

The second-best category includes “Applied Psychology Measurement”, whereas the real Applied Psychological Measurement is in the bottom category. There are myriad cases of this type.

As a psychologist who has always wished for research performance to be judged on the basis of well-pondered information, I can only hope that the ultimate ranking of journals will be made by strict adherence to relevant criteria, and by a panel that shows evidence of knowing what journals exist.