Identifying appropriate journals in which to publish original research on vaccines against human infectious diseases

Abstract

The most effective way of communicating new research findings is by publishing them in a peer-reviewed journal which is widely read and highly respected. To ensure that important new data are shared with the appropriate audience in a timely manner, a number of important considerations need to be taken into account when choosing a suitable journal. This article provides an analysis of journals which publish original articles describing studies of vaccines against human infectious diseases. A search of PubMed identified over 80 journals which recently published vaccine-related studies. These journals were filtered according to impact factor and number and percentage of vaccine-related studies published from 2006 to 2010, resulting in a core of 32 journals which frequently publish studies of vaccines against human infectious diseases. A survey was then undertaken to gather additional information with respect to acceptance rate, average time needed from manuscript submission to acceptance and from acceptance to publication. This dataset should provide a useful source of metrics which can help ensure that manuscripts are submitted to the most appropriate journal.

Keywords:

• Vaccine
• Infectious diseases
• Journal metrics
• Impact factor
• Acceptance rate

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel Portsmouth

Daniel Portsmouth studied Biology at the University of Warwick, UK, and holds a PhD from the University of Vienna, Austria. Before joining the Baxter Vaccine R&D team in 2009, Daniel worked on the development of viral vectors for cancer gene therapy at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna.