Marjolaine Hamelin1and Eric Lichtfouse2
1INRA, UR0050, Laboratoire de Biotechnologie de l’Environnement, Narbonne, France
[email protected]
2INRA, UMR1347 Agroécologie, Dijon, F-21065, France
[email protected]
Scientific journals are facing increasing competition directly affecting publishers and editorial boards. In addition, access to scientific information and reading patterns have changed markedly. Since 2003, the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development (ASD) has adapted its editorial policy to this highly competitive and moving environment in order to stand out and improve its impact (1). The scope, language and title of the journal were modified. A preselection step was introduced, several calls for reviews were made and spin-off books were published (2). Particular attention was given to abstracts, titles, colour figures and photos. A sister book series named Sustainable Agriculture Reviews (3) was created to recycle articles rejected by ASD, thus decreasing authors’ disappointment. As a result, the ASD impact factor increased from 0.566 (rank 29/53) in 2003 to 2.9 (rank 4/75) in 2010. ASD also achieved the highest percent increasein total citations in the field of Agricultural Sciences in early 2010, according to Essential Science Indicatorsdata from Thomson Reuters(4). We will present the editorial changes responsible for the increase of the impact factor and category rank.
2) doi: 10.1007/978-90-481-2666-8, doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-0394-0