Information for Indian Authors
UGC-CARE List Discontinued (2024) — What It Means for Authors
On 3 October 2024, the University Grants Commission discontinued the UGC-CARE journal list. Here's what changed, and how to assess journal quality now.
On 3 October 2024, in its 584th meeting, the University Grants Commission (UGC) officially discontinued the UGC-CARE Reference List of Quality Journals. The centralised UGC-CARE list — long used in India as a shorthand for a "recognised" journal — no longer exists.
📄 Download the official UGC notice (PDF)
What the discontinuation means
- There is no longer a single "UGC-approved" or "UGC-CARE listed" list to check — for any journal or publisher.
- The question "Is this journal UGC approved?" no longer has a yes/no answer, because the credential it referred to was retired.
- Responsibility for judging journal quality now sits with universities, institutions, and authors, using transparent, independently verifiable signals rather than a single list.
What to verify in a journal now
In the absence of the CARE list, these are the concrete, checkable signals of a legitimate, quality journal:
- A valid ISSN — verifiable on the ISSN Portal.
- A DOI on every article, registered through Crossref and resolvable at doi.org.
- Transparent, independent peer review with a clearly documented process.
- Full open access with clear licensing (e.g. a Creative Commons licence stated on every article).
- Discoverability in recognised databases — Google Scholar, DOAJ, OpenAlex, and others.
- Stated publication ethics, aligned with the COPE / DOAJ / OASPA / WAME Principles of Transparency.
- A named editorial board with real, verifiable affiliations.
How IORO Publications measures up
Every IORO Publications journal is built around exactly these signals: a registered ISSN, a Crossref DOI on every published article, transparent peer review, full open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence, permanent archiving in Zenodo, and discoverability through Google Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref and more. See our Publication Ethics & Principles of Transparency and browse the full list of journals.
Is IORO Publications "UGC approved"?
No journal is "UGC approved" any longer — the UGC-CARE list that this phrase referred to was discontinued in October 2024. IORO Publications journals are transparent, peer-reviewed, fully open-access journals with ISSNs, Crossref DOIs, and standard indexing — the signals that now matter for assessing journal quality and for academic recognition.