Thomson Reuters Quantifies Asia’s Rise in Global Submission Rates to Academic Publishers

The Intellectual Property & Science division of Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today released a new report affirming global submission rates for academic journals are at their highest level in six years.

The ScholarOne Manuscripts^TM report, Global Publishing: Changes in submission trends and the impact on scholarly publishers, confirms what scholarly publishers have long suspected: submission rates are not only rising overall but are increasing significantly from emerging nations, bringing a new influx of content from a diverse research base.

Traditionally strong submitters like the United States, Japan, and Europe are being outpaced by nations like China and India in the percentage change of their total world share of submissions (2005 – 2010). For instance, despite having the most submissions in 2010 overall (230,826), the U.S. portion of the world figure dropped by 3.3 percent. Conversely, China’s portion of the world’s overall holdings increased by 5.5 percent.

Along with a growing global research base, higher overall submission rates present both a challenge and an opportunity for publishers to keep pace with growing amounts of content. Thomson Reuters has identified two ways publishers across the industry have found success in meeting rising demands:

· Accommodate Cultural Diversity within Peer Review Systems: Utilizing systems that identify potential plagiarism and provide Author Services portals ensures “good science” is not overlooked due to cultural differences or language barriers.

· Leverage Tools to Build Programs: Leveraging tools within existing systems to identify “hot spots” where journals are receiving the most attention can help inform sales and marketing efforts and future business development.

“Using data on over three million manuscript submissions, the ScholarOne Manuscripts report reflects what publishers have seen, and will continue to see, in their own workflow,” said Keith MacGregor, executive vice president at Thomson Reuters. “Although overall submission rates are rising, our data shows that acceptance rates have remained relatively static over time. Publishers need to determine whether this is truly a reflection of the quality or if they need to begin to implement processes like those highlighted in the report.”

Global Publishing: Changes in submission trends and the impact on scholarly publishers uses data from ScholarOne Manuscripts to look at submission and decision trends in 4,200 journals of all sizes and scopes, published by over 365 societies, publishers, and university presses. ScholarOne Manuscripts is the premier journal and peer review tool for scholarly publishers and societies. For more information, please visit here.

Reference: Thomson Reuters