Quaternary has received its first CiteScore and is waiting for its Impact Factor Index
The open-access journal Quaternary was launched in 2018 and this year has received its first CiteScore from Scopus, which situates this publication among those with the greatest impact in the specialty
In 2017, the scientific publisher MDPI commissioned the Barcelona Botanical Institute (IBB) researcher Valentí Rull (VR) to launch and rule an international open-access journal called Quaternary. As the founding Editor-in-Chief, VR defined the general policy of the journal, its aims and scope, and organized the advisory and editorial boards, which were composed of over 60 prestigious researchers, many of them among the most recognized of the discipline, who kindly accepted the invitation to participate in this initiative. You can read the founding paper at the MDPI web page.
Shortly after, MDPI began the procedures for the journal to be included in the main databases that measure the impact of scientific journals and classify them accordingly, especially Scopus (CiteScore) and Clarivate (Impact Factor). As is known, these organizations monitor the candidate journals for several years, to check and evaluate aspects such as frequency, continuity and quality, among others.
After 4 years, which is the minimum required for a decision, Quaternary has already received its first CiteScore and next year it will receive its first Impact Factor. In the Scopus classification, Quaternary has a CiteScore of 4.3 and ranks 42 out of 155 journals (top 27%; close to the Q1/Q2 boundary), in the Earth and Planetary Sciences category. This situates the journal among those with the greatest impact within the Quaternary discipline. Next fall we’ll see where it stands according to Clarivate’s impact index.
VR served the journal for the period 2017-2020 and currently, the Editor-in-Chief is Jef Vandenberghe, from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, but the same editorial guidelines that VR established in 2018 remain, with practically the same advisory and editorial boards, with some additions. The journal is quarterly and until now 20 issues with >130 papers have been published, corresponding to the last 5 years (2018-2022).
