EASE Council members Duncan Nicholas and Elisa de Ranieri drew from their extensive experience and expertise in journal management to bring you a session intended to start your year on insightfully strategic footing.
One of the key activities to perform when making development plans and strategizing our journals is some comparative analysis to understand what is happening in our subject area, and assess how similar journals are performing. This helps us benchmark the current landscape in our field, putting our own journal’s performance into context, and helping us set goals.
Perhaps you intend to increase the impact factor of a journal. Looking at similar journals may offer realistic targets, enabling you to temper expectations or consider other strategies. Which databases are most well used in your field? If you want to get found by readers, it helps to be in the same places as other titles in the field. Your editorial board may be keen to work on the journal’s social media presence – but where? Find where your potential audience is before making efforts in any particular platform.
All these ideas and more were covered in this session demonstrating practical techniques, tools, strategies and systems to give delegates insights into their own journals and subject areas, and a wealth of information to use for development plans and goal setting.
Editor-in-Chief, Newton, Cell PressItaly
Elisa is Director of Author Experience at Cell Press. She joined Cell Press in 2021 and before that worked at Springer Nature for 9 years in a variety or editorial roles, including Editor in Chief at Nature Communications. Before her editorial career, Elisa worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory after obtaining a PhD in physics from the University of Cambridge in 2010.
Development Editor, Reproductive BioMedicine OnlineUnited Kingdom
Duncan is Past-President of EASE, Director of DN Journal Publishing Services, and Development Editor for Reproductive Biomedicine Online journal. He is a publishing professional with over 20 years of experience in the scholarly journal industry. He is currently employed as Development Editor at Reproductive BioMedicine Online (RBMO), working to enhance the journal’s editorial processes, community presence and scientific impact. He also serves as Director of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE), following terms as President, and Council Member. Prior to his role with RBMO, Duncan provided editorial development and training consultancy to major publishers, small independent journals, learned societies and universities.