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How to count your academic papers

 Highly Skilled Professional (HSP) (i) a or (i) b types can earn extra point up to 25 or 15 for academic achievements. Measurements of the achievements include number of patents and number of academic papers published. Let us look further into how academic papers are counted for the HSP point.

 According to documents published by Immigration Office, extra point of 20 for (i) a, or of 15 for (i) b is added when an applicant has three or more academic papers that have been published by an applicant as a corresponding author within academic journals covered by academic academic paper database.

 You may wonder which database should be used to count your papers published in journals. As Immigration Office does not specify any database for the count, you may use any prestigious academic database.

 It is however recommended to use Elsevier Scopus when you want to see if you can claim HSP point for your publication of academic papers, because Immigration Office uses this database when it reviews papers published by an applicant. So that it makes straightforward for Immigration Office to review your claim and have less chance for the office to ask you for additional documents to support your claim.

 Your papers, that you have published as a corresponding author, can be counted to see if there are more than the threshold number of papers published, i.e. three. Practices differ among academic communities on who should be a corresponding author when a number of co-authors contributing in a single paper. Immigration Office takes the first author listed in the database as a “corresponding author” for HSP point. This means that you should also count your papers of your name listed as the first author in the database.

 Please find a link to Scopus database where you can search your papers up to 10 for free of charge. You need to use a fee liable version to search without the limitation. The fee liable version is expensive to subscribe so that it should be financially practical to use it at your research institution, rather than paying for the version for your own use.

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