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Journal of Physics Communications

About Journal of Physics Communications

Scope

Journal of Physics Communications™ publishes high-quality research in all areas of physics and builds on the strength and prestige of the Journal of Physics series. The journal does not make a subjective assessment on the potential future significance of a paper, instead providing a rapid platform for communicating research that meets high standards of scientific rigour and contributes to the development of knowledge in physics.

All physics-related research is in scope, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies. All types of results can be published, provided they contribute to advancing knowledge in their field, including negative results, null results and replication studies.

Why should you publish in Journal of Physics Communications?

  • Broad scope: the journal scope extends across all areas of physics and interdisciplinary topics.
  • Fast publication: we are committed to providing you with a speedy, 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.
  • High standards: Journal of Physics Communications operates a transparent editorial selection and feedback process focused on scientific validity and rigour. Articles will be peer reviewed by IOP Publishing’s global network of expert reviewers.
  • Inclusive peer-review policy: no subjective assessment is made on the potential future significance or perceived novelty of your paper. Instead, we rigorously assess papers based on the validity of the research, the scientific methodology used, and to ensure all papers meet high ethical standards.
  • Open access: open access option—for more details see the IOP Publishing open access policy page.
  • Transfer opportunities: as well as accepting direct submissions, the journal also offers you a quick and easy solution to transfer your manuscript from another IOP Publishing journal if it does not fit that journal’s scope or significance criteria. Articles are transferred along with peer review reports to save time and avoid duplication of work for reviewers.
  • Society owned: IOP Publishing is a leading society publisher of advanced physics research. Any profits generated by IOP Publishing are invested in the Institute of Physics, helping to support research, education and outreach around the world.

Inclusive publishing and trusted science

IOPP Community Journal logo, including the text Inclusive Publishing, Trusted Science.

As a society-owned publisher with a legacy of serving scientific communities, we are committed to offering a home to all scientifically valid and rigorously reviewed research. In doing so, we aim to accelerate the dissemination of scientific knowledge and the advancement of scholarly communications to benefit all.

Journal of Physics Communications supports this mission and actively demonstrates our core values of inclusive publishing and trusted science:

  • Inclusive publishing: We welcome all papers on the basis of scientific validity and a strong methodology. Our scope is inclusive of many types of research including interdisciplinary, null and negative results, and replication studies.
  • Trusted Science: Peer review is the backbone to trustworthy scientific scholarly communications. Our internal peer review process assesses all papers with strict scientific and ethical standards.

Article types

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

  • Letters: short research articles that report new research. As a guide, letters should not generally be more than eight journal pages (or around 4500 words) in length.
  • Research Papers: articles of unlimited length that report new research.
  • Topical Reviews: articles presenting a snapshot of recent progress in a particular field.
  • Technical Notes: brief, methods-based articles of a more technical nature, which make a useful and novel addition to the literature.
  • Comment: comment or criticism on work previously published in the journal. Usually published with associated Reply.

Peer review

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

  • Identity transparency: single-anonymous, double-anonymous (author choice)
  • Reviewer interacts with: Editor
  • Review information published: review reports (author and reviewer opt in), author/editor communication, reviewer identities (reviewer opt in)

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

Journal of Physics Communications maintains the highest standards of publication and research ethics and is a member of the Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE). Authors are expected to comply with IOP Publishing’s Ethical Policy.

Reviewers for Journal of Physics Communications are expected to point out relevant work that has not been cited and use citations to explain where elements of the work have been previously reported. When writing a report, reviewers should justify any literature references suggested for inclusion in the work.

Citations should add value, and should not be unfairly biased towards an individual, group or organisation. The practice of including superfluous references, including to the reviewer’s own work, to promote and inflate citation scores is unethical.

Editors reserve the right to notify the authors that reports may contain citations that may not fully reflect the diversity of the field and may be unfairly biased towards an individual, group or organisation. Authors do not have to include these into their work if they do not believe they add value, and the editorial decision of the paper will not be affected.

Research data

Journal of Physics Communications has adopted IOP Publishing’s research data policy. Please check that your article complies with the policy before submission.

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

Journal of Physics Communications is a fully open access journal. Articles are published under a CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution) licence. Articles are freely available to everyone to read and reuse immediately upon publication, provided attribution to the author is given. Publication is funded by article publication charges (APCs).

For more information on IOP Publishing’s open access policies please see our Open access page.

Members of the Institute of Physics (IOP) are eligible to receive a 25% discount on the article publication charge (APC) for this journal (applicable once per article). The discount can be selected during article submission.

Publication Charges

Journal of Physics Communications has no subscription charges and the costs of publication are fully funded by article publication charges (APCs).

GBP EUR USD
Article publication charge* £1200 €1440 $1790
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 Journal of Physics Communications.

Transformative Agreements

Journal of Physics Communications 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 make help their work as easy to discover as possible. Journal of Physics Communication is currently included in the following abstracting and discovery services:

  • Scopus
  • Chemical Abstracts Service
  • DOAJ
  • INIS (International Nuclear Information System)
  • Inspec
  • NASA Astrophysics Data System
  • Web of Science (Emerging Sources Citation Index)

Journal metrics

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