Abstract
Indexing in bibliometric systems like “Scopus” (developed by Elsevier) [1] is important for emerging journals, as it confirms the journal’s adherence to certain publishing standards and allows for evaluating both its performance among peers and the relative quality of its content. Scopus metrics have been adopted by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine to evaluate the performance of individual researchers and institutions, as well as the quality of journals published in Ukraine. Therefore, the acceptance of the “Proceedings of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. Medical Sciences” (Medical Sciences) for Scopus indexing in early 2021 was an important milestone for our Journal and a verification of our commitment to progress and our ambition to grow, develop, and improve [2].
As the end of 2025 marks five years since our Journal’s inclusion in the Scopus database, we must reflect not only on our bibliometric performance and achievements, but also on something that has proven far more profound. This anniversary of Medical Sciences coincides with nearly four years of a full-scale war on Ukrainian territory, a reality that has fundamentally reshaped not just our Journal’s content, but also its very soul and purpose.
It was an extraordinary event when Scopus endorsed our title, Medical Sciences, which was submitted on January 8, 2021. This marked the culmination of a systematic editorial transformation initiated in 2015. Our editorial team persistently implemented international standards in our work. This resulted in Scopus’ retroactive indexing of Medical Sciences content for 2019 and 2020 (59 articles), providing additional independent validation of the consistency of our editorial standards with international criteria. Medical Sciences [Print ISSN (2708-8634) and Online ISSN (2708-8642)] now carries the weight of Scopus credibility, presenting new and original medical research to the global scientific community.
We are facing an existential threat. Instead of celebrating citations, impact factors, increased submissions, and international recognition of Medical Sciences, we write about resilience, adaptation, and the human capacity to maintain intellectual life even during war. During our years in Scopus, we have rapidly transitioned to a fully digital editorial operation. The inclusion of Medical Sciences in the Scopus database significantly facilitated this transition to a fully digital editorial workflow, which proved to be crucial over the past four years.
After nearly four years of war, what have we learned?
First, Medical Sciences, as well as other medical journals, are not mere repositories of data but living documents of human adaptation and resilience. Our pages now tell a story that future generations of researchers will learn how a medical community responded to an existential crisis while maintaining scientific rigor.
Second, our international scientific collaboration in the editorial process keeps progressive people together, ensuring the long-term preservation of a safe civilization. When colleagues worldwide chose to stand with Ukrainian science, they were not just supporting research; they were affirming that truth, evidence, and shared human values matter more than military might.
Third, the mission our founders established in 1898—to disseminate medical knowledge in Ukrainian, to create professional terminology, to unite the medical community—remains as vital today as it was then. Perhaps even more so today. In wartime, publishing articles in English for international recognition, as well as in our native Ukrainian, to maintain our professional identity and intellectual traditions, becomes an act of national self-preservation. Publishing articles in Medical Sciences, both in English for international visibility and in Ukrainian for preserving our professional and intellectual identity, is itself an act of national self-preservation.
Fourth, Open Access isn’t purely a publishing model but a moral imperative. In 2018, we made the entire Medical Sciences archive freely accessible online—a collection that now spans 127 years. We couldn’t have known how crucial that decision would prove to be. Today, displaced physicians, field medics, and healthcare workers or students in the most challenging circumstances can access cutting-edge research without barriers. It helps save lives because this knowledge is free and accessible.
Finally, there cannot be an artificial distinction between “war medicine” and “civilian medicine.” Trauma protocols we are publishing, mental health interventions we are documenting, and triage systems we are refining all have implications far beyond Ukraine’s borders and war experiences. When the next natural disaster, conflict, or pandemic strikes, those affected will benefit from the lessons we are learning now during this terrible war.
In summary, what we’ve proven in Medical Sciences over the past five years is more significant than any bibliometric indicator. First of all, Ukrainian medical science endures. Our commitment to sharing and advancing health knowledge worldwide remains unbreakable. Even in the darkest times, the light of scientific inquiry continues to shine.
We could well adopt the motto of our journal from the Ukrainian national anthem lyrics, “Soul and body we will lay down for our freedom.” But it might also be, “Knowledge persists. Truth endures. Science transcends.”
In the next five years of Medical Sciences, we wish all our readers and authors peace and health. But whatever it brings, may we face the challenges with the same dedication, rigor, and hope that have sustained us through these past ravaging years.
Acknowledgments
We thank every Ukrainian medical professional and researcher who has written an article, contributed a peer review, or an editorial for Medical Sciences, and who has chosen to continue research, maintain standards, and keep the flame of Ukrainian science burning bright. Your work will outlive this war and serve humanity for generations to come.
We thank everyone on the Editorial Team for helping publish Medical Sciences on schedule. That is what we do. That is who we are.
We thank our publishing partners: Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, Lviv, Ukraine; The Shevchenko Scientific Society; Western Scientific Center of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine; The Ukrainian Medical Association of North America (UMANA); and the Support to Ukrainian Editorial Staff (SUES) initiative. *We thank our technical partners, who maintain our OJS platform and DOI registration, ensuring our systems remain operational despite numerous power outages and cyberattacks [3-6].
Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Our Heroes!
*SUES is the coalition led by OPERAS, and includes EIFL, DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals); OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks); IBL PAN (Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences), and over 20 French university presses [7].