About Inverse Problems
Scope
Subject coverage
An interdisciplinary journal combining mathematical and experimental papers on inverse problems with theoretical, numerical and practical approaches to their solution.
As well as applied mathematicians, physical scientists and engineers, the readership includes those working in geophysics, radar, optics, biology, acoustics, communication theory, signal processing and imaging, among others.
The emphasis is on publishing original contributions to methods of solving mathematical, physical and applied problems. To be publishable in this journal, papers must meet the highest standards of scientific quality, contain significant and original new science and should present substantial advancement in the field. Due to the broad scope of the journal, we require that authors provide sufficient introductory material to appeal to the wide readership and that articles which are not explicitly applied include a discussion of possible applications.
Article requirements
Articles in Inverse Problems™ must meet the highest scientific quality standards, both in terms of originality and significance, and the research results should make substantial advances in the field. Authors and reviewers are asked to take into account that Inverse Problems is an interdisciplinary journal when considering what is significant and worthy of publication. In particular, they are asked to bear in mind the following points.
Papers should have carefully written introductions, which briefly summarize and explain the results so that readers from other related disciplines can understand them. Theoretical and mathematical papers should have an introduction clearly stating the potential applications of the problem and the results. Experimental and computational papers should be presented clearly for the whole inverse problems community.
Papers are typically between 16 to 25 pages in length. However, we do not have a strict upper or lower page limit on submission. If your submission exceeds 30 pages we will request that the reviewers explicitly comment on whether the length is justified by the scientific content and whether the work could be shortened without detriment.
Why should you publish in Inverse Problems?
- Wide international circulation and visibility.
- Accepted manuscripts: research can be downloaded and cited within 24 hours of acceptance.
- Editorial Board and International Advisory Panel members play an active role in overseeing the peer review process to maintain the high quality of the journal.
- Excellent author service: a friendly and helpful team are readily available to answer your questions (how to contact us).
- Open access: authors may choose to publish to publish their paper openly in the journal (conditional on payment of an APC) or to host manuscript versions via a repository.
- Society publisher: Inverse Problems is published by IOP Publishing, a publisher central to the Institute of Physics (IOP) and a world leader in professional scientific communications. IOP is a not-for-profit society and registered charity that works to advance physics research, application and education.
Article types
Inverse Problems welcomes submissions of the following article types:
- Research papers: reports of original research work which discuss the analysis or application of inverse problems.
- Special issues or sections: collections of novel research articles on a specific topic commissioned by the Editorial Board and Guest Editors. Submissions may be by invitation or by an open call for papers. Papers submitted to these special issues undergo the same rigorous peer review process as all other manuscripts and are published within, or as a replacement for, the regular journal issues.
- Topical Reviews: written by leading researchers in their respective fields, these articles present a review of the current state of the art of a particular field. Topical reviews are normally commissioned by the Editorial Board.
- Comments: comment or criticism on work previously published in the journal. These are where possible published with an associated reply. Comments should be timely and should have a direct bearing on the significance of the results in the paper being commented on.
For example, they may:
- point out and/or correct a significant error or misinterpretation in the results.
- significantly extend or generalise a result of the paper in some way.
- point out relevant prior literature that significantly affects the novelty or priority of the results.
Special requirements
Inverse Problems’ statement regarding the inclusion of potentially offensive or inappropriate imagery in submitted papers:
We ask authors to carefully consider both the subject matter and provenance of images included in their work before submitting to the journal. If the submitted images could be potentially offensive to the journal’s readership or violate copyright, Inverse Problems reserves the right to request that authors seek alternative images or other means to express the same results before the final version is published.
Peer review
The following summary describes the peer review process for Inverse Problems, using the ANSI/NISO Standard Terminology for Peer Review:
- Identity transparency: single-anonymous, double-anonymous (author choice)
- 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.
Inclusivity and diversity
IOP Publishing recognises that there are inequalities within the scientific publishing and research ecosystems. We are committed to a progressive approach to inclusivity and diversity, and are working hard to eliminate discrimination to foster an equitable and welcoming publishing environment for all.
IOP Publishing follows Guidelines on Inclusive Language and Images in Scholarly Communication to ensure that journal articles use bias-free and culturally sensitive communication. We ask authors to please follow these guidelines in their manuscript submissions.
More information about our work on inclusivity is available on our Open Physics hub.
Ethics
Research data
Please note that this policy requires authors to include a data availability statement in their article.
For any questions about the policy please contact the journal.
Many research funders now require authors to make all data related to their research available in an online repository. Please refer to the policy for further information about research data, data repositories and data citation.
Open access
Alternatively authors who do not select the gold open access option can choose a green open access route to publication.
For more information on IOP Publishing’s open access policies please see our Open access page. For our author rights policies please see our Author rights page.
Publication charges
Publication on a subscription-access basis is free of charge.
Authors have the option to pay the following article publication charge (APC) to publish their article on an open access basis under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.
| GBP | EUR | USD | |
| Article publication charge* | £2295 | €2635 | $3165 |
| Reduced article publication charge* for Group B countries** | £500 | €575 | $675 |
| Reduced article publication charge for Group A countries** | £0 | €0 | $0 |
*excluding VAT where applicable
**eligibility criteria can be found here
APCs only apply to articles accepted for publication; there are no submission charges.
There are no other charges for publishing in Inverse Problems.
Transformative Agreements
Inverse Problems is included in our transformative agreements which allow authors from some institutions to publish open access without paying an APC.Find out if you’re covered by an agreement
If you are covered by an agreement, use our author guide to help you submit your paper.
Countries where we have transformative agreements include:
Austria, Canada, Croatia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Germany, Poland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland.
Paying for open access
Various discounts, waivers and funding arrangements are available to support our authors. Visit our Paying for open access page for further details.
Abstracting and indexing services
We work with our authors to help make their work as easy to discover as possible. Inverse Problems is currently included in the following abstracting and discovery services:
- CNKI Scholar
- EBSCO Academic Search Alumni Edition
- EBSCO Academic Search Complete
- EBSCO Academic Search Elite
- EBSCO Academic Search Premier
- EBSCO Academic Search Ultimate
- EBSCO Applied Science & Technology Source
- EBSCO Applied Science & Technology Source Ultimate
- EBSCO Computers & Applied Sciences Complete
- EBSCO STM Source
- EBSCO TOC Premier
- Ei Compendex
- GeoRef
- INIS (International Nuclear Information System)
- Inspec
- INSPIRE – HEP
- MathSciNet
- NASA Astrophysics Data System
- PASCAL
- Scopus
- VINITI Abstracts Journal (Referativnyi Zhurnal)
- Web of Science (Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded, Current Contents – Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences)
- Zentralblatt MATH