The Managing Editor’s Report for 2018/9 is available here. Some highlights include:
- Our acceptance rate for regular submissions has fallen to 4.1% (from 5.3% in 2017-8 and 6.3% in 2018-9), consistent with our policy of applying top-three standards. Our fast-track acceptance rate is 2%
- As a result, our backlog continues to fall substantially, reducing the time between acceptance and in-print publication. This also means that we will never reject a paper due to insufficient journal space / pressure not to exceed a page budget. Being stringent on papers below top-three standards means that there is ample space for any paper that crosses the bar.
- 75% of accepted papers were (conditionally) accepted after one revision, compared to 59.5% in 2017-8. The mean number of rounds to acceptance was 1.2, compared to 1.4 in 2017-8
- The number of desk rejections fell to 182 (from 236 in 2017-8 and 296 in 2016-7), potentially consistent with a higher quality of submissions