Since its inception in 2008, the Arabian Journal of Geosciences (AJGS) has developed into one of the most important journals for the geosciences in the Middle East, Africa, and the Mediterranean region. In a few short years, it has become the leading journal in this field in terms of volume and readership in this region.

Recently, the journal started to attract a large number of research papers from other parts of the world such as Asia, Europe, and the Americas. It receives 4000 to 5000 submissions annually and publishes more than a thousand papers each year. The publication procedure is managed by a team of top international scientific editors, nearly two hundred scientists from prestigious universities and research centers around the world who were carefully selected following a competitive recruitment process.

The main objective of the Saudi Society for Geosciences (SSG) and Springer (now Springer Nature) when establishing the journal was to create a prestigious scientific platform where interested readers could find the latest scientific research in the geosciences worldwide, with a particular focus on the Middle East, Africa, and the Mediterranean. This was driven by the demand for a journal to highlight the scientific findings from this important region of the world. Prior to this, there was no journal on geosciences with a focus on this particular region.

SSG and Springer agreed on “Arabian Journal of Geosciences” as a name for it, in line with other similar journals with titles starting with “American,” “European,” “African,” or “Asian.” Although at the beginning this title has engendered some confusion that limited the global scope and reach of the journal, we were later delighted that a large number of international researchers focused on a broad range of geographies and different fields in the geosciences have chosen to publish in the Arabian Journal of Geosciences.

In view of the increased level of submissions, the journal’s editorial board has decided to expand the publishing interests of the journal to include vital topics for the geosciences in general so as to respond to the interests of these researchers. The focus now includes research on geological data in all its richness as well as areas concerning the ancient and modern environment, climate, and human life with a view to finding relevant solutions to environmental problems of both natural and anthropogenic origin, in addition to essential fields in geotechnology.

This expansion of the journal’s priorities was also adopted to better contribute to the efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). It is important to the editorial board that the journal strives to remain relevant in a changing world by updating its aims and scope, by following new trends in research interests, and by attracting studies from other geographical areas. The editorial board conducted a review of the journal’s website to clarify these points.

Recently, the journal received an unusually high number of proposals for “Special Issues” on important scientific topics. These were interesting proposals, with accredited academics supporting the editorial process. However, a post-publication investigation by Springer Nature’s Research Integrity Group found a number of articles with serious concerns, including in some cases compromised editorial handling and peer review process, inappropriate or irrelevant references, or not being in scope of the journal or guest-edited issue. Based on the investigation’s findings, the Editor-in-Chief no longer had confidence in the results and conclusions. These articles were retracted, in line with COPE guidance.

The evidence suggests an organized network deliberately seeking to subvert quality control processes to infiltrate scientific journals with the objective of easily publishing manuscripts in respectable journals. While we are working hard on addressing the ethical concerns that arose as a result of the external manipulation of editorial processes of three guest-edited issues, Clarivate Analytics has taken the decision to remove the journal from Web of Science for a period of 2 years. The journal will be reassessed for inclusion in the following years. Scopus has also decided to put the journal on a probation period.

The editorial board of the Arabian Journal of Geosciences deeply regrets this outcome. We have tightened all our controls, implementing systems to scrutinize all proposals for special issues and strictly monitoring and scanning all papers before publishing them. We are committed to ensuring that the journal applies the highest ethical standards, and we hope that the journal will be reconsidered for indexing very soon.