The elephant in the room: impact factor

As new journal impact factors are released this week, it’s worth considering what an impact factor really is and whether the academic community should put so much emphasis on a single metric.

In the latest issue of Development, Editor-in-Chief James Briscoe and I openly discuss our views on the impact factor and how the field of developmental biology is perceived through its lens. As part of a larger series drawing on real conversations we’ve had with our community, we highlight that the impact factor is not an accurate measure of Development’s real contribution to research and researchers. We detail how authors and readers can take practical steps towards ethical publishing practices that support our communities, as well as the field-specific, society or not-for-profit journals that serve them.

We hope this Editorial ignites discussion and empowers researchers to make change.

“We are all, in a sense, co-authors of the IF. It is not a number that descends from on high; it emerges from millions of individual citation decisions made by researchers like you. If we collectively cite the work that matters to us, in the journals that serve our field, the metrics will follow. We also have a collective responsibility to challenge how IF is used: in grant reviews, in hiring decisions, in promotion committees. If we believe that research should be judged on its own merit, we need to act on that belief, not just as editors, but as reviewers, as panel members, and as colleagues” 

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