The paper is nearly written and then the question arrives: where do we send it. This is where a collaboration that has run smoothly for a year can stall for a month.
It is almost never a disagreement about the science. Your partner is being measured by something you are not being measured by.
What your partner is actually measured on
Vietnamese institutions commonly count outputs against defined journal lists. Promotion, institutional rewards, and credit toward funded projects can depend on which list a journal appears on — and a respected specialist journal that is not on the relevant list may count for nothing.
This is why a partner can seem unreasonably attached to one venue. They are not chasing prestige; they are protecting an outcome that a specific list controls.
Meanwhile your own incentive is usually about readership and citation within a subfield, where a narrow specialist journal may serve the work better than a higher-ranked generalist one.
Both positions are rational. Recognising that is what turns the conversation from persuasion into problem-solving.
Ask one question early
At the point you have preliminary results, ask: are there journal lists that determine whether this paper counts at your institution, and can you send me the relevant ones?
Asking early costs nothing and removes the most common cause of a late stall. It also tells your partner that the constraint is legitimate in your eyes, which makes them more willing to state it plainly rather than push a single title without explanation.
What you should not do is treat an unexplained preference as obstruction. In most cases there is a concrete institutional rule behind it that your partner assumed you already knew about.
What to weigh, in order
Scope fit. This governs the probability of acceptance and it outranks ranking. A strong paper sent to the wrong journal is desk-rejected, costing months that matter more to an early-career partner than to you.
Who reads it. The point of publishing is that people working on the same problem find the work.
Whether the paper counts at both institutions. If a journal satisfies both systems, take it and close the discussion.
Review time and acceptance rate. If your partner or their doctoral student needs an accepted paper by a defence date or a contract renewal, this factor is not secondary.
When nothing satisfies both
Three workable resolutions:
Decide by whose contribution led this paper, and record the alternation for the next one. In a continuing collaboration, taking turns serves both sides better than a compromise venue that serves neither.
Split into two papers — only if the work genuinely contains two independent contributions aimed at different readerships. Slicing one study into two thin papers is a decision both of you will regret.
Submit to their target and adjust something else: author order, corresponding authorship, or who leads the next output.
What to avoid is conceding silently. An unspoken concession reappears later as reluctance on unrelated decisions, and neither of you will be able to trace where it came from.
Article charges: settle before you choose, not after
Open access charges can be substantial, and who pays affects which journals are even on the list.
Three things to establish: whether the grant has a budget line for publication charges; whether either institution has a publisher agreement that covers or discounts them; and whether the journal operates a waiver or discount scheme for authors based in certain countries — many do, and the request usually has to come from the corresponding author.
If you hold the funds and your partner does not, say so directly rather than letting them discover the constraint at submission. And if a waiver request is needed, consider whether it is better made by the partner based in the qualifying country — the scheme's eligibility often depends on that.
Settle it before writing starts
Agree two or three target journals in priority order as soon as results take shape.
The reason is practical as much as diplomatic: length, structure, methods detail and figure conventions differ by journal. Writing first and choosing later means rewriting.
Agree the fallback at the same time — where the paper goes if the first choice rejects it. That decision is much harder to make in the week a rejection arrives, when both of you are reading the reports and taking them personally.
Why is my Vietnamese co-author attached to one journal?
Institutional credit there commonly depends on defined journal lists, so a respected specialist journal outside the relevant list may count for nothing.
What should I ask at the start?
Whether journal lists determine if the paper counts at their institution, and to be sent the relevant ones — asking early removes the most common late stall.
What matters more than journal ranking?
Scope fit, because it governs acceptance probability; a desk rejection costs months that matter more to an early-career partner than to you.
Who should request an article charge waiver?
Often the partner based in the qualifying country, since eligibility for such schemes commonly depends on the author's location.
