You interpret South Africa’s AI of 4.1 as pronounced specialization in religion research. However, given the extreme concentration in domestic journals (59% in HTS Teologiese Studies alone) and the subsequent delisting of that journal in 2025, this specialization appears driven by publication strategies targeting one specific outlet rather than genuine research capacity. Shouldn’t you reframe this as an artifact of database coverage and national publication behavior rather than specialization?
Your per capita analysis uses total population rather than R&D personnel, which is inappropriate for humanities research where retirees, clergy, and independent scholars contribute substantially. For Israel (158 items/million vs. 715 for all fields), this statistic is meaningless without controlling for population demographics and research-active scholars. Why not use alternative denominators such as total researchers or university enrollment?
You found that the mega-journal Religions (MDPI) accounts for a substantial portion of recent growth, and that HTS Teologiese Studies was delisted in 2025. This suggests the A&HCI itself has quality control problems in this category. Why recommend using A&HCI for evaluation at all when your own evidence shows it indexes problematic journals, misses significant scholarship, and has incomplete metadata? Doesn’t this undermine the entire premise of using this database for research evaluation in Religion?