ConservationBytes.com

The much-touted Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative was established in 2008 to “…assesses research quality within Australia’s higher education institutions using a combination of indicators and expert review by committees comprising experienced, internationally-recognised experts”. Following on the heels of the United Kingdom’s Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and Australia’s previous attempt at such a ranking (the now-defunct Research Quality Framework), we will now have a system that ranks research performance and universities in this country. Overall I think it’s a good thing so that the dead-wood can lift their game or go home, but no ranking system is perfect. Some well-deserving people will be left out in the cold.

Opinions aside, I thought it would be useful to provide the ERA journal ranking categories in conservation and ecology for my readers, particularly for those in Australia. See also my Journals page for conservation journals, their impact factors and links. The ERA has ranked 20,712 unique peer-reviewed journals, with each given a single quality rating (or is not ranked). The ERA is careful to say that “A journal’s quality rating represents the overall quality of the journal. This is defined in terms of how it compares with other journals and should not be confused with its relevance or importance to a particular discipline.”.

They provide four tiers of quality rating:

• A* =  Typically one of the best in its field or subfield in which to publish and would typically cover the entire field/subfield. Virtually all papers they publish will be of a very high quality. These are journals where most of the work is important (it will really shape the field) and where researchers boast about getting accepted. Acceptance rates would typically be low and the editorial board would be dominated by field leaders, including many from top institutions.
• A =  The majority of papers in a Tier A journal will be of very high quality. Publishing in an A journal would enhance the author’s standing, showing they have real engagement with the global research community and that they have something to say about problems of some significance. Typical signs of an A journal are lowish acceptance rates and an editorial board which includes a reasonable fraction of well known researchers from top institutions.
• B = Tier B covers journals with a solid, though not outstanding, reputation. Generally, in a Tier B journal, one would expect only a few papers of very high quality. They are often important outlets for the work of PhD students and early career researchers. Typical examples would be regional journals with high acceptance rates, and editorial boards that have few leading researchers from top international institutions.
• C =  Tier C includes quality, peer reviewed, journals that do not meet the criteria of the higher tiers.

If you’re an Australian conservation ecologist, then you’d be wise to target the higher-end journals for publication over the next few years (it will affect your rank).

So, here goes:

Conservation Journals

• A*: Conservation Biology, Global Change Biology, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA, Science, Trends in Ecology and Evolution
• A: Biological Conservation, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
• B: Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, Biodiversity and Conservation, Conservation Genetics, Environmental Conservation, Oryx, Pacific Conservation Biology
• C: Animal Biodiversity and Conservation, Chelonian Conservation Biology, Conservation Science Western Australia, Journal of Coastal Conservation, Journal for Nature Conservation
• Not yet ranked: Conservation Evidence, Conservation Letters, Conservation and Society, Current Conservation, Insect Conservation and Diversity, Journal for Insect Conservation, Studies in Conservation

Ecology Journals (in addition to those listed above; only A* and A)

• A*: Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, Biological Reviews, Ecological Monographs, Ecology, Ecology Letters, Environment International, Fish and Fisheries, Global Ecology and Biogeography, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences, PLoS Biology, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences, The American Naturalist, The Quarterly Review of Biology
• A: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, Animal Behaviour, American Journal of Primatology, Auk, Behavioral Ecology, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, BioEssays, Biology Letters, Bioscience, BMC Biology, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Coral Reefs, Diversity and Distributions, Ecography, Ecological Applications, Fisheries, Freshwater Biology, Functional Ecology, International Journal of Primatology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology, Journal of Avian Biology, Journal of Biogeography, Journal of Ecology, Journal of Experimental Biology, Journal of Fish Biology, Journal of Mammalogy, Journal of the North American Benthological Society, Journal of Zoology, Molecular Ecology, Oecologia, Oikos, Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, Reviews in Fisheries Science, Wildlife Monographs, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society

I’m sure I’ve missed a few, but that’ll cover most of the relevant journals. For the full, tortuous list of journals in Excel format, click here. Happy publishing!

CJA Bradshaw