Why researchers publish in non-mainstream journals: Training, knowledge bridging, and gap filling

In many countries research evaluations confer high importance to mainstream journals, which are considered to publish excellent research. Accordingly, research evaluation policies discourage publications in non-mainstream journals under the assumption that they publish low quality research. This approach has prompted a policy debate in low and middle income countries with financial and linguistic barriers to access mainstream journals. A common criticism of the current evaluation practices is that they can hinder the development of certain topics that are not published in mainstream journals – although some of them might be of high local relevance. In this article we examine this issue by exploring the role of non-mainstream journals in scientific communication. We asked researchers from agricultural sciences, business and management, and chemistry in Colombia about their reasons to publish in non-mainstream journals. We found that researchers publish in non-mainstream journals because they: 1) offer a space for initiation into publishing (training); 2) provide a link between articles in mainstream journals and articles read by communities with limited access to them (knowledge-bridging); 3) publish topics that are not well covered by mainstream journals (knowledge gap-filling). Therefore, publication of ‘low scientific quality’ articles does not sufficiently explain the role of non-mainstream journals. The results suggest that research evaluation policy in low and middle income countries should consider assigning greater value to non-mainstream journals given their role in disseminating potentially useful knowledge, in particular regarding local or regional issues.