A complex of interconnected strategic, technological, and organisational problems in the development of scientific periodicals in Russia has been identified. The necessity of delineating an independent direction for policy-making and management of the system of periodic scientific publications, as a unified object of management within the strategic documents defining the scientific and technological policy and in the structure of state governance of the scientific and technological sphere, has been substantiated. Measures are proposed and justified to harmonise the national network of scientific journals with the forefront of ongoing scientific research in the country; to strike a balance between global and national languages of science while maintaining the visibility of Russian publications and authors at a global level; to promote self-organisation within science and reinstate the leading role of editorial boards and collegial forms of work; to subordinate infrastructure, the editorial-publishing process, and peer review to editorial boards.