Journal Survey

The BPA and the APA have collaborated in surveying 43 Philosophy Journals. The survey was conducted at the end of 2014, and gathered data about the journals’ submission rates, acceptance rates, the turn-around time for their review process over the previous 3 years (2011, 2012 and 2013 – some journals have also submitted 2014 data). The survey also asked questions about the percentages of papers submitted/accepted that were written by authors who identify as women, and authors who identify as minority ethnic. (You can see the survey questions here). The responses were provided by journal editors, and in those cases where journals do not record this kind of information, editors received data from their publishers to enable them to give responses.

Here are some summaries of what the data show:

Referee reports: We asked editors about the percentage of submissions that received at least one referee report. 74% journals who answered the question about referee reports (n=38) give at least one report to more than 50% of submissions, and 21% of respondents give at least one report to ALL submissions.
Time in review: We asked editors about the average time (in months) that manuscripts will be in review – 38 responded with data. The mean time for manuscript review among these journals 2.7 months.
Anonymous reviewing: 40 of the journals answered the questions about their review processes, and 100% of them have anonymous-to-reviewer processes in place. But only 14 of those journals have anonymous-to-editors submission processes (28.5%).

We hope to be able to involve more journals in the survey, and to repeat the exercise to update the results in future. To request that a journal be added to future surveys, please contact the APA’s publication coordinator, Erin Shepherd. The APA and BPA wish to thank everyone who participated in gathering and sharing this information and hope that it is useful to the philosophical community.

For each of the journals titles below, clicking on the link will open a new tab in your browser where you can see that journal’s response to the survey. By clicking several titles and switching between tabs, you’ll be able to compare answers given by different journals. A spreadsheet with all of the responses (.xlsx) is available to download here.

American Philosophical Quarterly

Ancient Philosophy

Apeiron – A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

British Journal of Aesthetics

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Dialectica

Erkenntnis

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

Ethics – An International Journal of Social Political and Legal Philosophy

European Journal of Philosophy