Young China science journal The Innovation joins international rankings
- The three-year-old publication has achieved its first ‘impact factor’ score, putting it in third place in its category behind Nature and Science
- Scientists set up the English-language journal with their own savings to fill a gap in China’s rise as a scientific powerhouse
The English-language journal was given an “impact factor” (IF) of 32.1, putting it in third place behind the world’s two most-cited and highly esteemed publications in its category – Nature, with an IF of 64.8 and Science, which scored 56.9.
The Innovation surpassed some prestigious international publications – including PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which scored 11.2 – and beat all domestic competitors, including the best-performing journals of previous years.
The IF reports have been compiled every year since 1975 by Clarivate, a British-American analytics company, and are considered an authoritative indicator of the major academic journals’ performance and impact in their fields.
A journal’s IF is roughly calculated by dividing the number of citations in the past year by the total number of articles published in the previous two years, according to Clarivate.