Editors’ Report 2016

Abstract

This is our third year as the Editors of Sociology and we are especially pleased to be the editors in this very significant year in the journal’s history. We celebrate the journal’s continued presence at the forefront of British sociology, publishing outstanding and original peer-reviewed articles to advance theoretical understanding and report empirical research on all sociological topics. The journal has continued to thrive during 2015 and we are pleased to see that our initiatives for the journal are now having a marked impact as we outline in our report below. Following editorial practices of the last few years, we use this Editors’ Report to outline developments in the journal and to provide transparency in the peer-review process, including: submission numbers; acceptance rates; and article processing times. The journal statistics for 2015 indicate that Sociology remains in a strong and healthy position in a number of respects. There were 349 original submissions to the journal in 2015. This differed slightly from the 382 submitted in 2014, which largely reflected the record number of submissions to the special issue on everyday life, published during 2015. The thriving nature of Sociology presents a demanding workload for all involved in the journal. In order to manage this we have expanded the membership of both the Editorial and Associate Boards and we welcome the new members who have joined the journal. We would also like to thank all of the Editorial Board, Associate Board and other non-Board reviewers who are essential to the success of the journal. Table 1 includes all original article submissions, by country. It is encouraging to see an increase in the number of articles submitted from outside of the UK, with Canada and Germany both significantly increasing. The submission figures from the USA have almost doubled this year, reflecting the international stature of the journal and perhaps our presence at the American Sociological Association and the International Sociological Association conferences. It is also notable that the total submissions for non-UK is higher than UK. However, one of our goals was to fully globalize the journal and especially to include sociological work from scholars in the global South and other areas that remain under-represented within international sociology. We are very pleased that the 2017 special issue, which is currently in progress, is entitled ‘Global Futures and Epistemologies of the South’, edited by Professors Gurminder K Bhambra and Boaventura de Sousa Santos. 637795 SOC0010.1177/0038038516637795SociologyKing et al. research-article2016