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World's most influential journals for 2017 unveiled in the Journal Citation Reports

JCR identifies journals with highest impact on climate change research

PHILADELPHIA, June 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/. Clarivate Analytics today released the 2017 Journal Citation Reports (JCR), an annual update of the world's most influential and comprehensive resource for information on highly cited, peer-reviewed publications and the source of Journal Impact Factor (JIF) scores.

Since 1973, the JCR has provided an assessment of a journal's standing in scholarly literature through the objective evaluation of statistical information, which only a publisher-independent company such as Clarivate Analytics, can provide. The analysis comprises citation data, impact and influence metrics, and millions of cited and citing journal data points from the Web of Science, the industry's leading citation index in the sciences, social sciences and arts and humanities.

"Because we understand the importance that the scholarly community places on the Journal Citation Reports, we remain dedicated to preserving its accuracy and reliability," said Emmanuel Thiveaud, VP, head of research analytics at Clarivate Analytics. "Clarivate uses a consistent, unbiased process to select the world's top-tier journals to include in the JCR."

The JCR offers a variety of metrics to analyze journal activity – from open access to ranking top journals by disciplines, further enabling publishers, editors and researchers to better understand and measure the impact of their activities on addressing issues such as global health and climate change through their research.

Consider climate change: Despite the thousands of papers published on climate change, controversy still lingers. To help add clarity to what the research data is revealing, the JCR identifies the top five research fields in climate change as Environmental Sciences, Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences, Geosciences-Multidisciplinary, Ecology and Geography-Physical.

Furthermore, based on the Average Journal Impact Factor Percentile in the JCR, the top 10 journals across these five fields are:

Journal

Publisher

Field

Average JIF 
Percentile*

1. Nature Geoscience

Nature Publishing Group

Geosciences-Multidisciplinary

99.734

2. Nature Climate Change

Nature Publishing Group

Environmental Sciences; Meteorology & 
Atmospheric Sciences

99.427

3. Energy & Environmental Science

Royal Society of Chemistry

Environmental Sciences

99.340

4. Trends in Ecology & Evolution

Elsevier

Ecology

99.042

5. Land Degradation & Development

Wiley

Environmental Sciences

98.719

6. Earth-Science Reviews

Elsevier

Geosciences-Multidisciplinary

98.670

7. Environmental Health Perspectives

US Department of Health Education & 
Welfare Public Health Service

Environmental Sciences

98.284

8. Bulletin of the American 
Meteorological Society

American Meteorological Society

Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences

98.235

9. Gondwana Research

Elsevier

Geosciences, Multidisciplinary

98.138

10. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry 
and Remote Sensing

Elsevier

Geography, Physical

98.102

 

*Average JIF Percentile allows for comparison of journals across different categories by providing a normalized score based on the rank of the journal .

The 2017 JCR release, which represents 2016 citation data for literature within the sciences and social sciences, features 11,459 journal listings in 236 disciplines with 81 countries represented. A total of 132 journals received their first JIF in this report; 66% of journals saw a year-over-year increase in their JIF and 33% saw a decrease. These high-impact journals are at the heart of the Web of Science, the most comprehensive network of citations of over 33,000 journals.

The Journal Impact Factor is the ratio of last year's citations to articles published in that journal in the two previous years. To ensure the JIF remains transparent to the research community, later this year the Web of Science will provide direct links to the source documents comprising the JIF denominator. In addition, with next year's JCR release, direct links will also extend to the JIF numerator.

As Clarivate Analytics continues to accelerate its investment in innovation, reinforced by the acquisition of Publons earlier this month, this release of the JCR also includes new enhancements such as Percent Citable Items and new filters making analysis of the JCR easier. Percent Citable Items shows the percentage of a journal's content that is considered "citable" for the JIF calculation.

JCR is available on InCites, an integrated web-based platform powered by data from the Web of Science. It is used for measuring research output and impact, monitoring trends and benchmarking articles, journals, institutions and researchers.

Additionally, JCR Journal Impact Factor Quartile metrics will be added to InCites Benchmarking & Analytics later this week. Institutions evaluating the impact of their research can use journal quartiles to better understand the portion of their faculty's output that is published in top journals, as well as track changes over time.

Learn more about the Journal Citation Reportsproper attribution and data use and how to submit journals.

Clarivate Analytics

Clarivate™ Analytics accelerates the pace of innovation by providing trusted insights and analytics to customers around the world, enabling them to discover, protect and commercialize new ideas faster. Formerly the Intellectual Property and Science business of Thomson Reuters, we own and operate a collection of leading subscription-based businesses focused on scientific and academic research, patent analytics and regulatory standards, pharmaceutical and biotech intelligence, trademark protection, domain brand protection and intellectual property management. Clarivate™ Analytics is now an independent company with over 4,000 employees, operating in more than 100 countries and owns well‐known brands that include Web of Science™, Cortellis™, Derwent™, CompuMark™, MarkMonitor® and Techstreet™, among others. For more information, please visit clarivate.com.

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CONTACT: Media Contact, Heidi Siegel, Director, External Relations , +1 215 823 5646 (o), +1 215 356 4504 (m), heidi.siegel@clarivate.com; Jennifer Figueroa, Media Relations, +1 203 824 6261 (m), jennifer.figueroa@clarivate.com