Collaborative Strategies to Attract Quality Submissions

Attracting high-quality submissions is crucial for a new academic journal seeking to establish its reputation and potentially gain indexing in important databases. Effective collaboration between the Editorial Office and the Editorial Board is fundamental to this goal.

1. Establish Clear Roles, Policies, and Communication Channels

A well-managed infrastructure is essential for a journal's success. When a new editor is appointed, there is an opportunity to review and confirm the roles and responsibilities of all editors. It is important to work with the publisher or owner/editorial office to determine processes for handling submissions and comply with principles like the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. Editors should clearly communicate the procedures the journal follows.

Open, transparent, and professional communication between journal staff and all editors is vital. Journal staff should facilitate regular communication opportunities with the Editorial Board and other stakeholders. This can include organising annual board meetings or conducting regular online EBM meetings to enhance cooperation.

2. Maximise Editorial Board Members' Potential

Editorial Board Members are often volunteers balancing journal duties with their normal academic workload. However, active EBMs who feel connected to and invested in the journal bring valuable ideas and support manuscript processing. Journals should aim to build a solid Editorial Board and maximise their full potential.

EBMs can contribute significantly to attracting high-quality submissions in several ways:

Suggesting Journal Development Strategies: EBMs can attend board meetings and suggest strategies for the journal's development.
Attracting Expert Authors: EBMs can help to attract suitable expert authors. They can also be asked to recommend and invite high-quality submissions, such as feature papers.
Promoting the Journal: EBMs can help to promote the journal among their peers or at conferences.
Organising Special Issues: EBMs can organise Special Issues, recommend hot research topics, and recommend Guest Editor candidates. A single good Special Issue can be more beneficial than ten poor ones.
Submitting High-Quality Content: EBMs themselves can be encouraged to submit high-quality papers, such as comprehensive review papers. They may also be asked to invite colleagues to publish, sometimes offering incentives like fee waivers.
Recruiting Other Stakeholders: Associate Editors can help recruit new board members, and EBMs can invite early-career scholars to join boards, helping to cultivate a broader network of potential contributors and reviewers.

Journal staff should encourage EBM participation and acknowledge those who do. Cultivating a group of high-quality EBMs and maintaining good relationships with them is a key strategy.

3. Ensure Decisions Are Based Solely on Merit and Quality

Editorial decisions to accept or reject a paper should be based only on the paper’s importance, originality, clarity, and its relevance to the journal's stated scope. These decisions should not be linked to internal targets or affected by arbitrary criteria like the author's nationality or affiliation. For new journals, the focus should be on achieving consistent output with high quality, rather than disclosing internal targets or expediting decisions for metric purposes. Journals should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material published.

Attracting high-quality papers and maintaining a focus on quality in published content is essential for a new journal to gain impact and be indexed by important databases. This quality focus, supported by a robust peer review process facilitated by the Editorial Office and EBMs, helps build the journal's reputation and encourages future high-quality submissions.