Background
As Indonesia’s academic infrastructure continues to strengthen, the establishment of internationally influential journals has become a high priority for both academic institutions as well as the government. In Indonesia, the designation ‘international journal’ holds special meaning from the standpoint of academic regulations. The promotion of faculty members and graduate students is often contingent on the publication of research in an ‘international’ journal. Unfortunately, due to a lack of consensus regarding what technically should constitute an ‘international’ journal as well as limited international circulation of Indonesian journals, Indonesian scholars who are apprehensive about whether their research will receive appropriate recognition prefer to publish their research in non-Indonesian journals. The net effect of this situation is that leading Indonesian journals have difficulty competing with non-Indonesian journals for article submissions from leading Indonesian scholars. Therefore, the ‘internationalization’ of Indonesian academic journals is essential to ensuring the overall quality of scholarly work in Indonesia and the recognition of Indonesian journals abroad.
