About European Journal of Physics

European Journal of Physics (EJP) is a journal of the European Physical Society and its primary mission is to assist in maintaining and improving the standard of taught physics in universities and other institutes of higher education. Therefore, submitted articles should:

• show how the physics content of the article is currently situated in higher education
• explain how the article advances the field of physics in higher education
• indicate the usefulness of their material to physics education
• make it clear what the intended level of physics education is (undergraduate or graduate)
• be written in such a way as to be comprehensive and understandable for the broader EJP audience, and not just for a specialist subset of the EJP audience.

Submissions that omit this information or which, in the publisher’s opinion, do not contribute to the above mission will not be considered for publication.

To this end, we welcome articles that provide original insights and aim to enhance learning in one or more areas of physics. They should normally include at least one of the following:

• Explanations of how contemporary research can inform the teaching and learning of physics at university level: for example, a survey of a research field at a level accessible to students, explaining how it illustrates some general principle(s).
• Original insights into the derivation of, for example, algebraic expressions. These should be of some general educational significance (consisting of more than corrections to textbooks).
• Descriptions of novel laboratory exercises illustrating new techniques of general interest. Those based on relatively inexpensive equipment are especially welcome.
• Articles of a scholarly or reflective nature that are aimed to be of interest to, and at a level appropriate for, physics students or recent graduates.
• Descriptions of successful and original students’ physics projects, experimental, theoretical or computational.
• Discussions of the history, philosophy and epistemology of physics, at a level accessible to physics students and teachers.
• Reports of new developments in physics curricula and the techniques for teaching physics.
• Physics Education Research reports: articles that provide original experimental and/or theoretical research contributions that directly relate to enhancing the teaching and learning of university-level physics (this explicitly excludes pre-university levels).

Unless it fulfils one or more of the above criteria, the journal is not a vehicle for the publication of fundamental research.

Papers are published under the following subject sections:

• Mechanics
• Thermal physics, thermodynamics and statistical physics
• Electrodynamics
• Optics and quantum optics
• Quantum physics and quantum mechanics
• Solid state physics and materials
• Relativity, cosmology, astronomy and astrophysics
• Physics education research
• Multidisciplinary and miscellaneous

• International audience: The journal is available to our audience of educators and education researchers in over 2,500 subscribing institutions worldwide, giving your work the best possible reach.
• High standards: Our dedicated peer-review team, supported by the Editorial Board, ensure that all submitted articles are rigorously assessed for accuracy, utility and relevance to the education community.
• Fast publication: We are committed to providing you with a fast, professional service to ensure rapid first decision, acceptance and publication. Once accepted, your article will be accessible to readers within 24 hours and will include a citable DOI.
• Open access: A paid Gold Open Access option is available for all authors, plus a generous ‘Green’ archiving policy, to allow you to confidently abide by any funder mandates.
• International Editorial Board: The journal is supported in all aspects by a strong Editorial Board, comprised of leading experts in physics education and education research.
• Society owned: European Journal of Physics is a journal of the European Physical Society, published by IOP Publishing. Any profits generated help to support research, education and outreach around the world.

Smartphone and Arduino papers
Please note that we tend to discourage the submission of Papers where smartphones and Arduinos are directly substituted for standard sensor technology already present in labs. We do however welcome shorter articles making use of smartphones and Arduinos in particularly novel ways.

Supplementary material
The electronic version of European Journal of Physics can include extra material as multimedia attachments. Any electronically stored material can be attached, so you can share full resources with the other physics teachers and include exciting illustrations with submissions. Unfortunately we no longer allow the use of any music at all in supplementary material.

Video abstracts
We invite all authors to submit a video abstract with their paper. This does not need to be sent in with the article when first submitted but we must receive this within three weeks of acceptance to avoid delaying publication of the article. More information on video abstracts can be found on our Publishing Support website.

Cover Letters
Cover letters are mandatory at submission. These will be requested via our submission system when you submit your article.

European Journal of Physics welcomes submissions of the following article types:

• Papers: articles that provide original insights and aim to enhance learning in one or more areas of physics, typically no more than 4000 words.
• Review articles: reviews in European Journal of Physics are intended to provide a general introduction to a selected field and report on recent progress at a level suitable for undergraduate education. Reviews in European Journal of Physics are of a flexible length but should usually be between 8000–10 000 words.
• Focus issue articles: invited articles, which will form a special collection of papers on a specific theme. When asked to select ‘Article Type’ on the submission system, please select ‘Special Issue Article’. Then select the special issue you’re submitting to in the drop-down box that appears.
• Comments: comment or criticism on work previously published in the journal. These are usually published with an associated Reply.

The following summary describes the peer review process for European Journal of Physics, using the ANSI/NISO Standard Terminology for Peer Review: 

• Identity transparency: single-anonymous
• Reviewer interacts with: Editor

Our Publishing Support website provides more information on our reviewing process as well as checklists in both English and Chinese language to help authors prepare their manuscripts for submission. 

If an article is not accepted for publication, we may offer the author the opportunity to transfer their submission to other suitable journals we publish. 

European Journal of Physics maintains the highest standards of publication and research ethics. Authors are expected to comply with IOP Publishing’s Ethical policy

Please note that informed consent to participate should be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) for all research involving human subjects. In addition, informed consent to publish should be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) for all research involving identifiable human subjects.

All submitted manuscripts containing research which involves human participants and/or identifiable human subjects will require an ethical statement.

Many research funders now require authors to make all data related to their research available in an online repository. Information about research data, data repositories and data citation can be found in EPL’s Data Policy section of the instructions for authors.

We work with our authors to help make their work as easy to discover as possible. European Journal of Physics is currently included in the following abstracting and discovery services:

• Baidu Scholar
• CNKI
• EBSCO Academic Search Alumni Edition
• EBSCO Academic Search Complete
• EBSCO Academic Search Elite
• EBSCO Academic Search Premier
• EBSCO Academic Search Ultimate
• EBSCO Engineering Source
• EBSCO STM Source
• Ei Compendex
• INIS (International Nuclear Information System)
• Inspec
• INSPIRE – HEP
• J-Gate
• JST
• MyScienceWork
• NASA Astrophysics Data System
• Naver Academic
• PASCAL
• R Discovery
• Scilit
• Scopus
• Semantic Scholar
• VINITI Abstracts Journal (Referativnyi Zhurnal)
• Wanfang Data
• Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded, Current Contents Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences, Essential Science Indicators)
• WTI-AG
• x-mol
• Yewno