Journals excluded from Scopus for September 2025

The September update of the Scopus journal list was one of the most unpleasant for the Kazakh scientific community in recent years.
Several publications in which a large number of Kazakhstani scientists had published were excluded.
Two more journals are currently under investigation and are expected to be removed from the database in the near future.

However, the greatest damage was caused by one particular magazine: International Journal of Innovative Research and Scientific Studies, which since the beginning of 2025 has become a mass platform for publications by Kazakhstani researchers.
The reason is that the quartile and percentile indicators, at first glance, seem attractive and create the illusion of reliability.
In reality, this turned out to be the case predatory publication, which led to large-scale consequences:

• more 1200 Kazakhstani scientists lost the indexing of their publications in Scopus - even those articles that had already been indexed were removed from the database;

• hundreds of cancelled dissertation defenses, grants, and awards of academic titles;

• total financial losses exceed 300 million tenge (near 375,000 US dollars).
  And all this is because of one magazine.

Team Article Academy repeatedly warned about the risks of this publication - as in our column Candidates for exclusion from Scopus, and on social networks.
We continue to monitor all potentially dangerous logs to protect our customers and partners from similar situations.

Publishing in Scopus-indexed journals is an important and complex process that requires professional knowledge, experience, and a deep understanding of the scientific communication system.
A person without sufficient experience is almost guaranteed to fall into the trap of predatory or dubious magazines.

That's why we've prepared this material for you - to show you how strict our review standards are and how we help authors avoid risks (more details here).

In this article we will cover:

• official list of excluded journals;

• unofficial list of potentially dangerous publications;

• list of journals being reviewed CSAB, publications in which are not currently indexed in Scopus.

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