European Sociological Review

[europer]

Any experiences with ESR?

[bump]

Bumping this to re-ask the question. Experiences with this journal (review times/helpfulness of editorial board)?

And, while we're at it, anybody have thoughts about it's reputation in the US? It has a great impact factor, but it might carry more weight in Europe than the US, I think.

[kurious]

I would be interested to know how is ESR ranked vis-a-vis top (but not elite) generalist journals such as SF or SP in the U.S. academy.

[Google]

It's fifth in Google's h5-index rankings, comparable to (but ahead of) Demography, Demographic Research, Criminology, Social Forces, etc.

scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en&vq=soc_sociology

It does somewhat less well in ISI rankings, coming in at 15th (comparable journals: Gender & Society, SMR, SP, SHI, SOE).

No idea about review times or any of that. Would be curious to know as well. My perception is that its reputation in the US is better reflected in the ISI rankings than Google's.

[EuropePerson]

they have a high impact factor, but I don't get the impression that US sociologists discuss ESR as much - so I'm not sure of it's status. With that said, I have an article under review there right now. It's coming on 3 months and I haven't heard anything. I'll update when I do.

[cordoba]

As somebody situated in Europe: Review times used to be rather short in earlier times (about 3 months). These days, it takes at least 6 months, at least that is my own experiences as well as that of my peers.

[Yes]

I have reviewed numerous times for ESR and submitted two manuscripts there. Turnaround for reviews seems to be superfast (8-10 weeks). I also did hear other stories from others.

[relative]

You really need to put your last comment in context. Did you submit your papers before 2010 or after? Because it is just the last 3-4 years were more than 5 people I know of had review times (1st decision) between 7 and 11 months!

[slow]

The turnaround time is extremely slow. On average, it takes at least half a year before you'll hear anything from them.

[backlog]

At the same time, ESR drastically reduced the backlog. One year ago, they had a backlog of two years, now it is only 8 months or so. So the extremely slow turnaround time might have been a strategy. This would mean that 1. it should be much harder to get accepted now or 2. that it should take more rounds of R&R to get a piece published.

[Another n=1]

I submitted something to a special issue a few years back. My paper didn't go through for reasons related to the guest editor and not the journal, but I do remember some comments about needing to make the paper more focused on European issues. It had 2 peer reviews, not 3.

So take that as you will, but it may be the case that some people will take the view that one must be using European data, unlike what you'd see in say, BJS, AJS.

Also note that ESR is the official journal of the European Sociological Association, which could account for the impact factor.

[lisa]

The long backlog is the reason for the recent rise in rankings and I don't think it translates to prestige. They had a huge backlog. The papers were already online as "online first" and hence cited. Then they published all of them in a bug issue. So all these papers that had quit some time to get cited were counted as published in that year. Or am I getting something wrong about the way in which the rankings work?

[Yes]

I have reviewed both before and after the current editor was appointed. Also note that ESR is NOT the official journal of the European Sociological Association. The official journal of the European Sociological Association is a journal called "European Societies." ESR is in fact the unofficial journal of RC28.

[Uh]

Isn't RSSM the journal of RC28? What makes ESR the unofficial one?

[chiming in]

I've a paper under review at ESR for 11 months and haven't heard anything even after contacting the editor.