Greetings, dear colleagues!
With you Vasyl Malets — Director of the “Academy of Articles” and author of an analytical column on journals at risk of being removed from Scopus. This is the sixteenth installment of the column and the fourth in 2026.
This issue is special: for the first time, we’re revisiting a magazine we’ve already reviewed. In July, in Part 15, we wrote about JIDMIS—at the time, it had three issues for 2026. Two months have passed, and now there are fourteen. The forecast came true sooner than we ourselves had expected.
Let me clarify right away to avoid any confusion: this is not a list of journals that have been removed from Scopus. Scopus publishes a list of removed journals approximately every six months in its “Discontinued Sources” section, but by the time a journal appears there, it’s already too late for authors. We’re writing about journals at risk of being excluded from Scopus: those that already show all the signs but are still formally indexed and are currently actively accepting articles.
In this issue:
- 1 Q3 journal from India, in which a single special issue contains twice as many articles as the entire year of 2025;
- 1 Iranian journal that has just been indexed in Scopus and is already being advertised on Telegram channels with a "publication in 7 days" promise;
- Issue 1 of Q3, a journal on artificial intelligence, which features an analysis of female characters in novels and the causes of the 1940 bridge collapse;
- The promised return of JIDMIS.
All four have one thing in common. At the end, I’ll show you how to spot it and how to check a Scopus journal before submitting your article.
Journals Nominated for Removal from Scopus: October 2026 List
1. Natural Resources for Human Health (NRFHH)
eISSN: 2583-1194
🔗 Link to Scopus
🔗 The magazine's website
Overview
The magazine was founded in 2021 by the Indian publishing house Visagaa Publishing House. In 2026, the magazine relaunched on a new platform. As of September, it has already published 5 regular issues and 12 special issues. Special Issue 10s contains about 130 articles across 1,605 pages—twice as many as in all of 2025.
The journal's content also extends far beyond its stated subject areas: it publishes articles on law, political science, management, literary studies, and other fields.
Profile: Q3 · India · natural compounds, pharmacognosy, ethnomedicine · APC: 500 USD
Major Violations
- 17 issues over the first 9 months of 2026 instead of 4 per year;
- a special issue with about 130 articles;
- a significant number of articles outside the stated subject area;
- The publisher is no longer on the website; contact via WhatsApp.
Risk assessment: probability of exclusion from Scopus — 100%; risk of further deindexing of articles from special issues — 100%.
2. Journal of Animal Environment
ISSN: 2717-1388 / E-ISSN: 2717-1396
🔗 Link to Scopus
🔗 The magazine's website
Overview
An Iranian journal published by the engineering firm Amayesh Shale Consulting Engineers. It was indexed in Scopus in November 2025, but by 2026, at least the third special issue of the quarterly journal had already been published. The journal is advertised on brokerage Telegram channels with the promise of “acceptance in 7 days, publication in 7 days.”
The website claims that the journal is indexed in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science without sufficient evidence. The publications are dominated by similar “ML frameworks” disguised as animal-related topics.
Profile: Quartile not yet assigned · Iran · zoology · APC: 400 USD
Major Violations
- at least 3 special issues during the first year after inclusion in Scopus;
- a sudden change in the authors' geographic distribution;
- ads with guaranteed placement times;
- The indexation was announced but not confirmed.
Risk assessment: probability of exclusion from Scopus — 100%; risk of deindexing articles from special issues — 100%.
3. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (IJAIML)
ISSN: to be determined
🔗 Link to Scopus
🔗 The magazine's website
Overview
A journal published by SvedbergOpen, based in Cape Town. Until 2025, it was published twice a year, but in 2026 it switched to a special-issue model. On September 22, Vol. 6 No. 11s was published—the eleventh special issue of the year, containing 73 articles.
Approximately 62% articles are indeed related to AI and machine learning, another 12% are borderline cases, and one in four articles has no connection to artificial intelligence.
Profile: Q3 · South Africa · Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning · APC: 800 USD
Major Violations
- 11 special issues over the first 9 months of 2026, instead of 2 issues per year;
- About 26% articles fall completely outside the scope of Aims & Scope;
- shared technical infrastructure with another journal;
- authors' parallel publications in several journals following the same pattern.
Risk assessment: probability of exclusion from Scopus — 100%; risk of deindexing articles from special issues — 100%.
4. Journal of Intelligent Decision Making and Information Science (JIDMIS) — again
eISSN: 3079-0875
🔗 Link to Scopus
🔗 The magazine's website
Overview
The journal was founded in 2024. Following a preliminary review, the number of issues increased from 3 to 14. Special Issue 13s contains approximately 155 articles and nearly 3,000 pages.
About 40% articles fall outside the stated scope: spinal MRI, pulmonary rehabilitation, law, Hall motors, concrete strength, and lettuce cultivation techniques. In broker advertisements, the journal is promoted as “Q1” with a 3-day acceptance time, although it is classified as Q2 in Scopus.
Profile: Q2 · Romania · decision sciences, AI, information systems · APC: 1,200 USD
Major Violations
- 14 issues in 2026, based on the stated goal of “one volume per year”;
- a special issue containing approximately 155 articles and 3,000 pages;
- approximately 40% articles outside the Aims & Scope;
- 75 days as stated, compared to 3 days in the broker's advertisement;
- The publisher is listed differently on various pages of the website.
Risk assessment: probability of exclusion from Scopus — 100%; risk of further deindexing of articles from special issues — 100%.
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Conclusion: How to Tell If Your Journal Might Be Removed from Scopus
If to place these four magazines nearby, becomes apparently, that this is not four some stories, and one technology.
The same "building set." All four websites run on the same version of Open Journal Systems, use the same numbering system for special issues (“1s,” “2s,” … “13s”), and are expanding their volume according to the same pattern. Two of the four journals, NRFHH and JIDMIS, have a separate page on their websites titled something like “Indexing & Refund Disclaimer.” Think about it: the journal publishes a legal disclaimer in advance stating that no refunds will be issued if indexing is lost. When the editorial board itself is preparing for de-indexing, this is the most honest warning one can receive.
Brokers instead of newsrooms. We found three of the four journals in intermediaries’ catalogs with a “Submit Article” button, and two on a Telegram channel that promised guaranteed acceptance times. When a journal is sold through Telegram rather than through the editorial office, it does not have a peer-review process by definition.
The camouflage is getting thinner. NRFHH and JIDMIS publish just about anything and everything. The *Journal of Animal Environment*, on the other hand, has already learned to tailor article titles to fit the scope, and this trend, unfortunately, will only intensify. A quick glance at the titles is no longer enough.
The forecast is coming true—and fast. The JIDMIS case shows that it takes not a year, but just a few weeks from the first signals to a full-fledged pipeline. If you submitted an article in June thinking, “Three issues is still okay,” by August you’d already find yourself in an issue with 155 articles on every topic under the sun.
Therefore, before submitting, check not the quartile but the current situation: how many special issues have been published in the last six months, how many articles they contain, whether they meet Scopus criteria, who is listed as the publisher, and where to find the editorial office’s contact information. Or leave it to the experts: we monitor journals at risk of being removed from Scopus on a daily basis and identify potential risks before the database itself flags them.
