List of Higher Attestation Commission Journals and Other Russian Indices

In accordance with the requirement of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC), metadata for issues of journals from the List of Peer-Reviewed Scientific Publications in which the main scientific results of dissertations for the degree of Candidate of Sciences and for the degree of Doctor of Sciences must be published (HAC List) have been regularly deposited in the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) in the bibliographic database eLibrary.ru for more than 20 years. In March 2023, the editorial offices of journals from the HAC List, following a recommendation from the HAC, began uploading information on their 2022 issues to the Russian Scientific Journals (RSJ) database, created by the Russian Research Institute of Economics, Politics and Law in Science and Technology (RIEPL). In April 2025, an order from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation added a new requirement: journals in the HAC List must now be registered not only in the RSCI eLibrary.ru but also in the Metaphora Information System (IS), developed by the Russian Center for Scientific Information (RCSI). Journals from the HAC List are recommended to regularly transfer metadata of published issues to the Metaphora IS through specially organized interfaces. What role do the RSJ database and the Metaphora IS play in the infrastructure of scientific publications? In addition to developing the Metaphora IS, the RCSI, by order of the Government of the Russian Federation, acts as the operator of the White List of scientific journals. The White List was formed in 2023 by the Interdepartmental Working Group (IWG) of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. The White List is intended to be used for monitoring and evaluating the publication activity of Russian scientists. Initially, the White List included about 29 000 English-language international journals and about 1000 Russian-language journals from the RSCI database. In September 2025, the Russian-language part of the White List expanded significantly with the inclusion of journals from the HAC List. We would like to receive detailed information from the originators of the White List on how the levels of White List journals (L1, L2, L3, L4) will correspond to the categories of journals in the HAC List (K1, K2, K3).