High Impact Factors for MPG Open Access Journals
Living Reviews physics journals top their categories
29 June 2012
The open access physics journal Living Reviews in Relativity, published by the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Potsdam, again leads the category Physics, Particles & Fields in the 2011 Journal Citation Reports released by Thomson Reuters on June 29, 2012. The unique review journal received an impact factor of 17.462, thus improving last year’s performance and rising to #54 in JCR’s complete list of about 8000 indexed journals.
Living Reviews in Solar Physics, published by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, has just received its very first impact factor (12.500). The journal thus ranks among the top three in the category Astronomy & Astrophysics, after it was included in the Science Citation Index (SCI) only in 2011. With an impressive #103 in the complete list, the 'newcomer' barely missed JCR's Top 100.
Living Reviews in Solar Physics was the second publication in the family of review journals initiated by Max Planck director Bernard Schutz. The concept of 'living' articles takes advantage of web-based electronic publishing, allowing authors to frequently incorporate the latest developments and research findings by updating their reviews. To ensure high-quality scientific content, all articles are subject to peer review and solicited by an international editorial board from expert scientists.
The journals have become one of the first places researchers look for information about work in their fields. The successful concept was adopted by other publications in various fields ranging from astronomy to political science. Currently, five Living Reviews journals are published by partners from the Max Planck Society, the European Community Studies Association Austria, the Leibniz Association, and the ETH and the University of Zurich.
The Journal Impact Factor is one of the most widely used tools for assessing scientific journals. It allows users to objectively evaluate a journal's performance and its influence on research globally. The impact factor of a journal is the average number of citations to those papers that were published during the two preceding years.