The Managing Editor’s Report for 2022/23 is available here. Some highlights include
- The 2022 Impact Factor was 4.400 (4.300 excluding self-citations). While in previous years, the RF had a steady increase in its impact factor, the 2022 Impact Factor represents a 13% decrease on the 2021 Impact Factor, which is likely impacted by Clarivate’s change of approach in its measurement. Nonetheless, the Journal continues on a strong forward momentum.
- Over the period, we have continued to apply our usual high quality standards, as shown by the acceptance rate of 5.38%. Although our median turnaround time has increased slightly from 30 to 35 days, our mean number of revisions before acceptance or conditional acceptance has reduced to 1.2, reflecting our commitment to a fast and decisive acceptance process.
- In February 2021, RF introduced an Accelerated Review Process, designed to streamline the review process for papers that have received an R&R at another journal.
- Between 2022 and 2023, we received 3 accelerated review process submissions. The acceptance rate was 100%, representing 1 of 1 papers that received a final decision during this period. As the sample size for this submission category is so small, and the policy is only in its second year, we are cautious about drawing broad conclusions from this data; however, early indications are positive that the accelerated review process is fulfilling its aim in attracting high quality submissions to the RF.
- Over the past 2 years, we published the Special Issues on China (May 2022 – Summaries here) and Sustainable Finance (November 2022 – Summaries here). This is the first year we were able to present and compare these data. Both Special Issues had a high level of interest, as shown by the strong submissions figures of 200 and 176 respectively. Quality was also high, with enough accepted submissions in each case to publish at least one volume.