Where to publish with good peer review in 2024?

[Fabian Neumann]

Dear all,

Many of you will have encountered generic or AI-generated reviews for your papers without appropriate editorial engagement to dismiss such reviews. In my perception, peer review quality in some of our most popular journals has declined substantially.

While I can imagine many reasons for this decline - such as the reliance on volunteers for reviewing and editing - it makes me question why we put up with it. Low-quality reviews will neither improve submissions nor will they assert the merit of published articles.

In contrast, I found the review process in Nature journals or Joule to be generally quite engaging and the editors intervene where necessary. Even though fees are high, the review process genuinely increases the research quality; sometimes reviews are even transparently published alongside the article. However, it is clear that perhaps not every paper can find a place in these journals.

Thus, I am looking for journals with high review quality and attentive editors.

Upon reviewing where members of this community have published with other publishers, I noted these potential alternatives:

- IOP Environmental Research Letters (https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/1748-9326) and the new IOP Environmental Research: Energy led by Emily Grubert (https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2753-3751) or IOP Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability (https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2634-4505),

- PLOS ONE is a broad journal by non-profit publisher PLOS with some less-known sister journals like PLOS Climate and PLOS Sustainability and Transformation (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/), and

- F1000 Research Energy Gateway which allows rolling papers with regular updates (https://f1000research.com/energy).

For software papers, we luckily can rely on the diamond open-access Journal of Open Source Software (https://joss.theoj.org/).

Do any of you have experiences to share or further recommendations?

Bonus points for journals with published peer review, swift editorial handling, and acceptable/no open access fees.

It seems to me that - without judgment - two key factors in identifying journals with rigorous peer review are the journal's standing and whether it has full-time editorial staff. Any other thoughts?

Best wishes,

Fabian

--
Dr.-Ing.
Fabian Neumann (he/him)
Postdoctoral Researcher

Department of Digital Transformation in Energy Systems
Institute of Energy Technology
Technische Universität Berlin
Einsteinufer 25 (TA 8)
10587 Berlin

[Johannes Schmidt]

thanks fabian, I totally agree.

 

I would add Energy Economics to the list. Reviews are mostly good quality, and Richard Tol as editor is perhaps controversial but does a decent job in my opinion. Of course, the journal will not publish all kind of energy system modeling studies.

 

best,

johannes

 

 

 

—--------------------------------------------------------------

Associate Professor Dr. Johannes Schmidt

 

+43 / 1 / 47654-73118

 

Institute for Sustainable Economic Development

https://refuel.world

https://homepage.boku.ac.at/jschmidt

johannes...@boku.ac.at

 

University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences
Peter Jordan-Str. 82
1190 Vienna / Austria

>>> Fabian Neumann <fn...@mail.tu-berlin.de> 18.08.2024, 11:53 >>>
Dear all,

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[Malte Schäfer]

Hi Fabian and everyone else,

Thank you for your email, it is quite helpful! I share your experience with less-than-ideal peer review processes.

I recently had good experiences with IOP Environmental Letters: Energy and RSC Energy & Environmental Science. Especially the latter struck me with a speedy, yet thorough review process, and with generally being author-friendly and service-oriented.

Unfortunately, neither of these journals ticks all your boxes (ie open review process, low/no charges).

I am also looking forward to additional recommendations!

Cheers

Malte

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[Ken Caldeira]

For very short papers (1000 words), Energy Findings ticks all the boxes.

You are allowed a longer supporting material.

https://findingspress.org/post/2072-introducing-energy-findings

https://findingspress.org/article/90391-broad-range-of-technologies-could-firm-up-wind-and-solar-generation-in-net-zero-carbon-dioxide-emission-electricity-systems

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[Alicia Wongel]

Hi Fabian,
Agree with all your points!

We've had a positive experience with (Energy) Findings. It's relatively new, so it lacks the prestige of a big name, but it could be a good fit for certain small-scope studies (emphasis on small and focused -- the word limit is 1000 words). The review process was very fast and pleasant and helped improve the paper. They have a focus on reproducibility and soundness ("the journal does not seek, nor want, reviews that describe the paper that the reviewers wish the authors had written") and all data must be open access.

Additional bonus: the fee is $150 (!), so about 1% of the open access fee of some Nature journals. Reviews are not published, though.

Best,
Alicia

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