JPMD further establishing its position across multiple journal ranking guides
The Journal of Place Management and Development (JPMD), the official publication of the Institute of Place Management, has been recognised in this year’s academic journal rankings as a well-established journal of academic quality and impact in a variety of disciplines. 2021 was the year that new field- and category-normalised metrics were introduced and recalculated, giving an augmented representation of the position of JPMD in terms of quality and citable documents in relevant fields of study. A brief analysis of the ranking scores is now presented.
Starting chronologically with the Scimago Journal & Country Ranking, JPMD has remained relatively stable in terms of scoring and citation count (SJR 2020 0.585 compared to SJR 2019 0.598 and Cites/Doc 2 years 2020 1.973 compared to Cites/Doc 2 years 2019 1.957). These scores were enough to rank JMPD in the second quartile (Q2) in all six subject categories (Urban Studies, Geography, Planning and Development, Business and International Management, Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management, Marketing, Strategy and Management). Out of these six, Urban studies (52/252) and Geography, Planning and Development (188/776) highlight the strength of JPMD and the imprint that it carves as a journal focusing on place-related research.
Being able to produce high quality and impactful research on place is further recognised in Elsevier’s CiteScore metric, which measures average citations received per document published between 2017-2020. In this index, JPMD surged from a score of 2.6 in 2019 to a 3.6 in 2020. This was complemented with the highest Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) score in the history of the journal (SNIP 2020 of 1.516). These results catapulted JPMD to the 30th place amongst 215 ranked journals in the Urban Studies category (86th percentile), and to the 131st place out of 704 journals in the Geography, Planning and Development category (81st percentile).
This consistency in metric performance and quality of publications was also recognised in the 2021 Academic Journal Guide, published by the Chartered Association of Business Schools. JPMD has retained its Grade 2 rating in the Regional Studies, Planning and the Environment category (first received in 2018), which is given to journals that meet all the accepted standards for academic research and publishing, are well regarded in their field, and often contain excellent practitioner-oriented articles. This result further illustrates the value of the journal as an outlet for original research on place management and its interrelated topics.
Finally, 2021 introduced a new metric that is linked to Clarivate’s Emerging Sources Citation Index and will act as a requirement for inclusion in the illustrious Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). The new metric, Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) calculates the normalised citation impact of citable items (articles & reviews) published by a journal over a recent three year period. JPMD performed adequately, earning a JCI score of 0.67 (average is 1) in the Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism category (60th out of 128 journals). As this is a new index, a better understanding of the measurement and normalisation against relevant categories will be pursued by the Editorial Team, making sure that JPMD is also assessed in relation to its strongest categories, namely Urban Studies and Geography, Planning and Environment. Nevertheless, this presentation highlights the strong position of JPMD in the journal rankings and solidifies it as an important journal in the study of places, spaces, cities, towns, and tourism destinations. The editorial team would like to thank all the authors, special issue editors, and reviewers for their hard work and effort during these years that made JPMD an attractive outlet for publishing high-quality work in place management.
About the author
Formed in 2006, the Institute of Place Management is the international professional body that supports people committed to developing, managing and making places better.