Getting published in an International Journal, perspectives of the publisher and the editors-in-chief
Moderator: Prof. Hrvoje Mikulčić
As researchers, you want to get publish to disseminate your ideas, to uncover potential research collaborations, to progress in your academic career and to secure research funding. The panel will provide background information on scholarly publishing and outline the various important steps authors need to follow in preparing their manuscript for a successful publication in an international journal. The lecture is suitable for PhD and Post Docs students, as well as for academics which have been already involved in dissemination of their research results.
The importance of authors to learn the specific aspects of the publishing cycle has become ever more crucial as the number of submissions, and as a consequence the number of rejections continues to rise. Increase your chances to get published and stand out in crowd, by understand the process and the expectations of editors when they receive your manuscript.
The panel, which consists of the editors-in-chief of leading partner journals to the SDEWES Conference and the publisher of Energy & Power Journals at Elsevier (TBC), will share their perspective on the process and will highlight the key aspects authors should take into account when submitting their papers to journals.
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (RSER) is currently the premium journal of the field of renewables and sustainability as it enjoys the highest Impact Factor in the area equal to 16.3. This presentation explains the areas we would like to receive papers and the characteristics that these papers should have. The journal basically covers all areas of renewables as well as electricity and fossil fuels including natural gas. It should be noted however that papers belonging to these non-renewable areas should be related primarily to sustainability issues.
The scope of the journal is fully explained in the presentation. The key word in the title of the journal is the word “Reviews”, which means that it should accept primarily review papers. This was confirmed in the first Editorial Board Meeting undertaken soon after I took over as Editor in Chief on 1//1/2025. This was not the case before and a diverse type of papers were accepted, like case studies, experimental, field work, interviews and surveys which are no longer accepted by the Journal. Therefore, now the journal accepts only review papers and specific type of research papers which need to have a significant review element of the subject into consideration, followed by a research component in the form of critique, comparison or analysis of the subject. This will be further explained in the presentation. We are especially interested in critical reviews that offer perspectives or future trends regarding the subject examined and not just a listing of published papers on the subject.
We have also decided that country- or region-specific papers are generally not of interest to the general readership of the journal, so these papers are not accepted anymore. The same applies for bibliographic literature review papers, which are not considered suitable because no science-derived results can be obtained by analysing the papers published in related literature. The same applies for papers related to nuclear energy, which is not considered either renewable or sustainable.
Finally, we also simplified the paper submission procedure by removing from the guide to authors the requirement for author checklist - a long list of requirements with respect to formatting, language, references, etc.
The refocusing of the journal to its original scope hopefully can improve the impact factor in the coming years.
Energy has submissions more than 28000 and final paper publication about 5000 in 2025, which makes Energy has much high number publications in comparision with its sister journals like Applied Energy and Energy Conversion & Management. The editor team is now considering how to reduce the submissions to narrow its scope and enhance its technical characteristics. Now we have used managing editors to do initial screen and desk rejection (in one week), thus we could take away 50-60% submissions due to out of the scope, or low quality, or less novelty. The assigned manuscripts to subject editors maybe desk rejected 30-50% based upon the expertises of the subject editors, thus we select really high quality manuscripts within the scope of Energy for peer review, this may reduce the heavey review load from reviewers and also the working load from the subject editors. This changes may speed up the review process, and get high quality papers published quickly. We have more concerns for the ethic problems currently, the editor team is now with more experience to clarify those manuscripts from the paper mills, thus we have enhanced ethic screen process. Energy is now in a way of change to meet the demands from authors, readers, reviewers and editors, we hope this journal will be much improved in the next several years.
