A ROAD TOWARD GREATER VISIBILITY OF RESEARCH OUTPUT IN INTERNATIONAL PEER-REVIEW JOURNALS: LESSONS FROM POLAND Joanna Skrzypczyńska, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland Paulina Pospieszna, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland DOI:10.1017/S1049096522000142 Internationalization, a relatively new phenomenon in the social sciences in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, is one of the most challenging and important areas for political science in this region (Crăciun 2018). In the area of research, international- ization primarily includes publishing in peer-reviewed interna- tional journals (Pohoryles and Cvijetic 2002). This article focuses on publications in peer-reviewed journals in general and, more specifically, on factors that may explain why Polish scholars lag behind their Western European counterparts. From a Teaching to a Research Mission in Political Science The democratic transition of the 1990s brought many changes in academia in Poland that—along with the legacy of communism— shaped the development of social science disciplines until the early 2000s. Trends and reforms emerging during the transition period (i.e., 1990–2000) oriented the focus of the social sciences toward a teaching mission (Curaj, Deca, and Pricopie 2018; Korytkowski and Kulczycki 2019; Kutsar and Kovács 2010). The greater focus on teaching resulted from the growing popu- larity of the social sciences, especially political science, interna- tional relations, economics, and law. This increasing interest coincided with the strengthening of the teaching mission of political science programs. This supported the proliferation of political science courses not only at public but also private universities (Dobbins and Kwiek 2017). The large private higher-education sector—which developed rapidly in the 1990s and the expansion of which ceased in the second half of the 2000s (Dakowska 2017)—offered additional financial incentives and attracted faculty members who could not resist them, given the severely underpaid positions at public higher-education institutions. The teaching mission of political science began to wane at the end of the 2000s due to both internal and external influences (Kwiek 2012). A decline in the country’s population, followed by the decrease in enrollment in social science courses and accom- panied by the Bologna process initiated by Poland’s accession to the European Union (EU) in 2004, led to important changes and reforms in the higher-education system (Tarlea 2017). The aim of Figure 1 Total Number of Published Articles in Political Science and International Relations (Scopus 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020) 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 2005 11 Poland Hungary Slovakia Romania Bulgaria Lithuania Latvia Estonia Slovenia Germany Czech Republic 57 86 238 204 115 60 96 30 75 16 63 41 1018 95 66 20 93 13 76 3 31 36 795 26 32 2 23 2 34 5 9 12 465 15 15 0 3 0 3 3 2 4 340 2010 2015 2020 Source: Scimago Journal & Country Rank (2021). PS • July 2022 587 ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096522000142 Published online by Cambridge University Press