Free to our members, The Journal of Adolescence is the authoritative academic reference periodical in this field. Members can now access the Journal of Adolescence on-line.

The journal is published on our behalf by Elsevier, part of the Reed Elsevier group. To contribute to or advertise in the Journal or to order back issues contact the Publisher. To notify them of a change to your address and for all such administrative queries contact the Secretariat.

The Journal is edited by Ann Hagell

Editor’s Report, Journal of Adolescence

Annual Report to Association for Professionals in Services to Adolescents (APSA)

Ann Hagell, September 2006

The Journal continues to do well and the whole Editorial team should take shared credit for another good year. The latest citation statistics show a significant rise in the Journal’s impact, and it is now ranked second out of the six journals refereed journals covering similar topics in adolescence. The Journal’s profile outside the UK has increased in recent years and we now have twice as many countries making submissions as we did four or five years ago. The Journal’s publisher, Elsevier, publishes over 80 psychology journals and issues a daily list of the 25 most cited articles; on a number of occasions this year JoA articles have featured.

All positions in the Editorial team are currently filled with representation from the US, mainland Europe, Australia, Canada and the UK. New Assistant Editors who have joined us this year have included Dr Wim Beyers from Belgium and Melanie Zimmer-Gembeck from the University of the Goldcoast in Australia. What the team shares is an interest in applied research that can really help move forward our understanding of adolescence.

The Journal was represented at a number of national and international meetings this year. As is our usual practice we held a reception for the Editorial Board members at the biennial Society for Research in Adolescence meetings in San Francisco in March. In addition we took part in a ‘meet the editor’ event at the biennial European Association for Research in Adolescence., where editors from a range of journals debated issues and took questions from the audience. We also participated, with around 50 other UK based editors, in a British Academy meeting on the strengths and weaknesses of the academic refereeing system.

We meet regularly with the publisher, Elsevier Science, to discuss issues relating to the management of the Journal. Discussion points this year have included a need to concentrate on some specific profile raising activities within the UK to complement our international activities, and over the coming year it is planned that the Journal will be represented at more local conferences. The ceiling on pages has continue to be something of an issue; the Journal is currently capped at 800 pages per volume. We have increased our size this year by 10% to allow us to process more of our accepted papers, but will still have more of a backlog than is ideal, which results from an increase in submissions over recent years. Our rejection rate remains high at around 75%. This is an issue we will continue to monitor.

Finally a number of Special Issues are in the pipeline. An issue on adolescent competence should be out shortly, and preparations for issues on romantic relationships and peer groups are under way. Special issues remain an important part of our format and allow us to concentrate on particular issues in a way that we hope is helpful to readers.