Celebrating Editorial Impact: Strategies for exponential journal growth

Author: Sobha Sivaprasad

Springer Nature celebrates and recognises our editors and teams for their achievements in editorial board development, journal growth, increasing diversity, and more. In this blog series, based on inspirational contributions from the 2023 Celebrating Editorial Impact event, editors-in-chief from across Springer Nature share exciting and innovative initiatives they are pursuing, the journey to implementing them, and the impact these have had on their journals and communities.

In today’s post, Prof. Sobha Sivaprasad, Editor-in-Chief of Eye, shares some strategies that brought the journal substantial growth over the past few years, and the various measurements to evaluate this.

Growing the visibility and impact of a scientific journal enhances the dissemination of knowledge within the scientific community. Attracting a broader readership can translate to more citations, and subsequently a higher impact factor. In turn, the journal attracts more and higher quality submissions, further influencing reputation and influence.

Ultimately, the growth of a scientific journal contributes to its sustainability, and thus to scientific and societal advancements through its publications and their impact.

In 2018 I took on the role of editor-in-chief of Eye, the official journal of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists in the UK, supported by managing editor Steve Beet. Since then, I’ve seen the journal grow exponentially.

In the following, I will discuss journal growth measurements as well as some of the strategies that contributed to Eye’s growth. But first I would like to acknowledge that the journal’s success is owed to the people who generously contribute their time and expertise: our editorial board members, reviewers, and authors.

Measuring the growth of a scientific journal

Impact Factor and citation count are the usual suspects when thinking about measuring a scientific journal’s growth. But these are not the only measurements to focus on.

Indeed, Eye has enjoyed a substantial jump in its Impact Factor from 2.455 in 2019 to 2.8 in 2023. It has consistently ranked highly among Ophthalmology journals, 14th out of 62 journals in 2022 and 23rd out of 95 journals in 2023.

In addition to these, Eye has also shown substantial growth in other measures of journal performance:

• Web traffic: 

Looking at the geographic spread of the journal’s web traffic by region in 2022-2023, usage is evidently globally spread. While most requests do come from the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as other European and Asian locations, I am glad to say that requests from other parts of the world are on the rise.

• Downloads:

In usage metrics, Eye has seen a massive growth from 1,246,324 downloads in 2019 to 3,222,387 downloads in 2023.

• Number of publications and submissions:

The number of publications has risen from 341 in 2018 to 508 in 2022, and submissions have grown from 1,200 in 2018 to over 1,800 in 2022.

Key strategies for journal growth

Looking back, I can identify several key strategies that contributed to the growth of Eye: focusing on diversity; publishing special issues with guest editors; organising collections; and inviting reviews.

1. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Championing DEI is crucial to making journal publishing inclusive and representative, and it supports growth by making the journal more visible and accessible to larger audiences. 

• We diversified the range of content to ensure a wider readership (for instance, shift focus from practising ophthalmologists to other healthcare professionals and researchers in all aspects of visions science);
• We increased exposure of the journal’s content by enabling access to a wider readership (by translating review abstracts to Mandarin, for instance) and monitored webpage traffic patterns to understand where access was most needed (to understand where efforts should be made to encourage access). 
• We improved the capacity of the editorial board to ensure the inclusion of expert editors from new fields of research (such as artificial intelligence, statistical modelling, bibliometrics, etc.);
• We prioritised diversity within the editorial board (in terms of gender, geographical region, career level, etc.).  

2. Special issues and collections. Gathering research outputs around specific topics is an opportunity to draw attention to a journal and expand its visibility.  

• The focus on emerging areas of research in special issues attracts high quality submissions, and they serve as reference hubs on specific topics. Special issues can also diversify content, draw attention from a broader audience with an interest in the topic, and foster collaborations and networking. Over the past five years we’ve introduced special issues on global eye health, ocular oncology, translational medicine, imaging, glaucoma, and Asian perspectives. The special issues have increased the number of citations considerably. 
• Collections also highlight key areas of interest, and can improve discoverability and thus also increase citations. They also enhance reader engagement and support interdisciplinary research. Eye has featured collections on topics such as diabetic retinopathy services and research in Africa, gene therapy, Covid-19 and the eye, Mpox, and more.

3. Invited reviews. Inviting well-known experts and authors with specific specialisations to contribute to the journal is significant in broadening readership and showcasing emerging or controversial research trends.

• Since 2022, Eye’s editorial board has commissioned brief articles, editorials, and reviews from experts. Contacting speakers in international conferences and lectures is a promising strategy to attract new authorship and in turn expand visibility.

Nurturing growth in ophthalmology research and beyond

Eye has seen growth in various measurements, such as web traffic and downloads mentioned earlier, and also in various key statistics such as its Immediacy Index (which rose from 0.6 in 2022 to 0.8 in 2023) and its Article Influence Score (growing from 1.050 in 2022 to 1.088 in 2023). In 2023, Eye’s most recent 5-year Impact Factor was recorded as 3.5, with a 1.02 Journal Citation Indicator.

But most notably, Eye has maintained its growth momentum also as the wider ophthalmology field saw a reduction in outputs in 2023. I am looking forward to working further with our authors and reviewers to continue growing Eye and its community and maintaining its relevance to science and practice.

Want to find out more about initiatives that make journals more accessible, impactful, and inclusive? Check out our special event: Celebrating Editorial Impact in 2023, which showcased contributions from Springer Nature editors-in-chief about the exciting strategies and projects enriching their journals, as well as their wider research communities.