Quality of Research should be Continuously Improved
It is in the interests of the higher education system and society in general that the quality of research conducted in the system should be continuously improved. The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) recently published a Report on Peer Review of Scholarly Journals in History, Philosophy and Politics aimed at improving the quality of the journals in higher education system, thereby influencing the standard of research conducted in the respective fields.

This report is the eleventh in a series of reports resulting from an ambitious programme of peer reviewing, in broad discipline groups, of all accredited scholarly journals published in South Africa. The reviews had their origins in a report on the  Report on a Strategic Approach to Research Publishing in South Africa, published by ASSAf, in 2006. The 2006 report highlighted the need for a system of quality assurance for South African journals accredited by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). The ASSAf project of systematically subjecting locally published journals to independent peer review is intended to improve their quality, visibility and impact.

This Consensus Report should be of value to the various stakeholders in the disciplines concerned, as well as policymakers, publishers, editors, prospective authors (new and established) and peer reviewers within the scholarly publishing community.