Publication Forum (JUFO) is a classification system supporting the quality assessment of research output in Finland, and was launched in 2012. The Publication Forum classification was born out of the need to evaluate the research output of research organisations not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively. The benefit of Publication Forum is its high coverage: the classification is able to account for the differences and characteristics of the publishing practices of various fields of science, unlike in citation analyses based on the international databases. In order to consider the publication cultures characteristic of various fields of science, the classification includes journals and series, conferences and book publishers alike.
The classification provides information about scientific publication channels’ impact and how highly regarded they are amongst the scientific community. The evaluation is carried out by 23 discipline-specific expert panels consisting of approximately 300 scholars of merit who are either Finnish or work in Finland. The scientific community is also able to participate in the classification by proposing amendments. The aim is to encourage Finnish researchers to publish their research findings in high-quality Finnish and foreign forums.
The four-tier classification rates the major foreign and domestic publication channels of all fields of science as follows:
1 = basic level
2 = leading level
3 = highest level
0 = publication channels that do not meet the criteria for level 1.
Level 1 includes peer-reviewed publication channels specialising in publishing scientific research results that have an editorial board consisting of experts of the field of science. Most publication channels are at level 1. Levels 2 and 3 feature a limited set of scientific journals, conferences and book publishers considered of the highest level and impact by expert panels. These are mostly international publication channels, but there are Finnish and Swedish language publication channels at level 2 in humanities and social sciences. Panel-specific quotas determine how many serial publications each panel can place at levels 2 and 3. The quotas are based on the publication volumes of the publication channels, which means that their numbers vary at levels 2 and 3 panel by panel.
Level 0 only indicates that the evaluation panel is of the opinion that the publication channel in question does not meet some criteria of level 1. This level includes channels of many types and levels from professional journals and suspicious open access journals to universities’ own publication series. Even a high-quality publication channel can first receive a level 0 just because it was established only recently and the panel is not yet able to assess its content. The level 0 channels can therefore also feature scientific articles and books that have been appropriately peer-reviewed and that deserve to be noticed in the assessments of an individual researcher, for example.
The JUFO level of a publication channel indicates the average level of competition and peer review passed by the articles and books, but the highly respected high-level publication channels also feature weaker publications with a fairly low impact. Similarly, the lower level publication channels sometimes produce publications that prove to be highly impactful. Due to this, this classification should only be used to assess large quantities of publications, such as for macro-level reviews of the publication production of research organisations, research fields or the entire country. The classification is not well-suited to assessing the merits of individual researchers and it cannot replace an evaluation performed by the experts of the field in science in question in a recruitment process, for example. Read more about the limitations of the JUFO classification in the user guide for the Publication Forum classification.
The classification system has been used as the quality indicator of scholarly publications produced by universities since 2015 as part of a university funding model introduced by the Ministry of Education and Culture. A total of 14 per cent of universities’ basic funding is allocated on the basis of scientific publications and other publications.
JUFO portal
The publication channel database of the Publication Forum contains more than 37,000* scientific publication channels that are available through the JUFO portal (*in February 2025). In addition, the portal also contains professional and general journals used by Finnish researchers, which are excluded from the JUFO classification. The user guide of the JUFO portal describes the search functions of the portal as well as the information available of the publication channels in the portal.
The JUFO portal also serves as a tool for the Publication Forum secretariat and panels to process and evaluate publication channels. The secretariat handles proposals for new additions and level amendments through the portal, and marks the publication channels to be evaluated for the panels. Panelists do most of their evaluation work in the portal.
It is possible for the research community to participate in the activities of the Publication Forum by registering as a user of the portal and making suggestions for publication channels through it. Anyone can register as a user of the portal. Registration is done through Eduuni.