By Chika Okeke
In line with its mandate to bolster research, the Raw Materials Research and Development Council, RMRDC, has unveiled an international journal with a global editorial structure and modern publishing standards.
The Journal of Raw Materials Research, JORMAR, has now migrated to a fully digital, open-access publishing platform that supports online manuscript submission, double-blind peer review, editorial processing, publication and long-term archiving.
Transformed from a locally circulated publication into a global journal, the newly launched, JORMAR, is intended to promote research on Nigeria’s raw materials and strengthen the link between scientific innovation, industry, and national development.
It was first published in 2004, became inactive after its last print edition in 2017, making its revival necessary in line with global trends in scientific publishing.
Director-General of RMRDC, Prof Nnanyelugo Ike-Muonso stated in Abuja over the weekend, that with the revamped journal, the Council is repositioning itself as a true research institution by providing a globally recognised platform for publishing scientific findings on Nigeria’s raw materials.
He disclosed that the Council had produced too few peer-reviewed publications since its establishment in 1988 despite its research mandate.
The DG stated that the revamped journal would help change the narrative by providing researchers within and outside the Council with an internationally compliant platform to publish research findings, promote innovation and strengthen Nigeria’s industrial development.
He said: “The initiative also complements the Council’s newly established research and academic cadre, which is expected to boost research output and encourage academic excellence.
“There are a lot of people who actually want to publish their ideas, and it’s not there. People have done things that are patented, but they are not also published. I don’t know why you pursue patents and you also not getting those things published. And then, somebody will be out there and make some little addition to what you have done and publish it and own it.”
Chairman of the JORMAR Implementation Committee, Dr. Sab Ebiriekwe hinted that a journal without a credible online presence is increasingly absent from global academic discourse, regardless of the quality of the work it publishes.
He noted that the Council had also digitised all previous editions of the journal and assigned Digital Object Identifiers, DOIs, to 117 legacy articles, ensuring that they are permanently accessible and citable within the global scientific community.
Dr. Ebiriekwe informed that the Council is pursuing inclusion of the journal in international indexing platforms such as Google Scholar, African Journals Online, Crossref, Dimensions, Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex, with plans to meet the requirements for Scopus.
Dr. A. Bello, representing the Editor-in-Chief of JORMAR, Professor Peter Onwualu noted that the revamped journal represents a strategic step towards positioning Nigeria as a leading contributor to global research on raw materials, value addition, and industrial innovation.
He said that the journal would publish multidisciplinary research spanning raw materials development, manufacturing, materials science, environmental sustainability, circular economy, industrial competitiveness, and supply chain management.
Bello explained that the journal will uphold internationally accepted standards of editorial independence, rigorous peer review, research integrity and ethical publishing while fostering stronger collaboration between researchers, industry, policymakers and development partners.
The Journal of Raw Materials Research serves as a scientific repository documenting research findings, innovations and critical information on Nigeria’s raw material resources, including their availability, processing technologies, industrial applications and value-addition opportunities.
