The European Journal of Ageing continues to expand in scope and impact.

Abstract

The European Journal of Ageing continues to expand in scope and impact. The year that begins with this issue already marks the 12th year since the inception of the journal, the 11th year since publication of four issues per year (2004 saw the publication of one initial issue only), and the 5th year since the journal received its first impact factor from Thomson ISI. In terms of scope, 47 manuscripts were submitted to the journal in its first full year of operation back in 2005. In comparison, we received 161 submissions in our latest full year of publication. The submission rate for 2014 is, therefore, some three and a half times the rate obtained in our first full year of publication and almost twice as much as the rate recorded only 4 years ago, in 2010. The increase in submissions has been matched by an increasingly competitive response rate for EJA. A rough estimate based upon the manuscripts processed in 2014 reveals that less than a fifth of the papers submitted were accepted for publication. This acceptance rate is in the magnitude of that reported in other highlyranked journals. We can also proudly reflect on the growing impact of the European Journal of Ageing among scholars. The latest figures available from Thomson ISI (2013) reveal that the journal attained a 2-year impact factor of 1.262, placing it in 15th place among the 31 journals included in the category of gerontology. This is quite a respectable ranking, one that places EJA alongside the more established and veteran journals in the field. However, 2-year impact factors sometimes do a disservice to journals in fields such as ours that do not tend to have quick publication turnover. For that reason, it is appropriate to take into account the 5-year impact factor, which more accurately reflects the citation time that occurs in the disciplines that contribute to our field of inquiry. Looking at the 5-year impact factor from Thomson ISI, we see that EJA was assigned a score of 1.857. This ranking places our journal 12th among the gerontology journals, (that is, squarely within the second quartile). The current citation record thus clearly indicates that the European Journal of Ageing has already had a significant impact on the field. Another way to gauge impact is to take into account a wider realm of publications, as may be seen by means of the Harzing Publish or Perish Index which produces the H-index. This index includes electronic citations and, thus, reflects a greater breadth of publication types. Perusal of the latest statistics that are listed for EJA on the HPOP website reveals that after exclusion of editorials and similar commentary published in the journal, some 307 articles are listed (this includes those currently on-line in the Springer EJA website), and well over 5,000 citations of the articles published in EJA. The HPOP figures also indicate that on average, there are some 17 citations for each article published in our journal. However, this figure also includes the H. Litwin (&) Paul Baerwald School of Social Work & Social Welfare, Israel Gerontological Data Center, The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: eja@mail.huji.ac.il