Minerals Engineering soars ahead with a record high Impact Factor

The 2019 journal Impact Factors (IF) are now available, and I am pleased that Minerals Engineering has recorded its highest ever IF, 3.795, up from 3.315 in 2018. The world's leading minerals industry journals, ranked by IF are:

Minerals Engineering  3.795

Hydrometallurgy 3.338

Mineral Processing & Extractive Metallurgy Review 2.785

Minerals 2.380

International Journal of Minerals Metallurgy & Materials 1.713

Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly 1.456

Physicochemical  Problems of Mineral Processing 1.256

Minerals and Metallurgical Processing 1.020

Impact Factor is a measure of the frequency with which the 'average article' in a journal has been cited in a particular year. The website of Minerals Engineering lists the most cited articles over the past three years, the most cited being New approaches for extracting and recovering metals from mine tailings by Falagán, C., Grail, B.M., Johnson, D.B., in Volume 106 (2017). This paper was part of a virtual special issue of papers presented at MEI's Biohydrometallurgy '16 in Falmouth.

Carmen Falagán and Barrie Johnson (right) with other members of the
Bangor University Research Group at Biohydrometallurgy '16

Authors publishing in Elsevier journals such as Minerals Engineering and Hydrometallurgy also have the added bonus of their manuscripts appearing on the world's largest on-line platform, ScienceDirect, from where papers are available for download. Last year well over 600,000 Minerals Engineering downloads were made, the highly cited Falagán et al paper having been downloaded over 19,000 times since its publication. Currently the record for the highest number of overall downloads, a whopping +47,300, is held by Feng Xie, Ting An Zhang, David Dreisinger and Fiona Doyle for their Volume 56 (2014) paper A critical review on solvent extraction of rare earths from aqueous solutions.  The most downloaded papers over the past 90 days are listed on the journal website. It is interesting to see that China accounts for around a third of all downloads from ScienceDirect.

The success of a journal is dependent on the quality and relevance of its papers, and I must thank and congratulate all the researchers who have endured the sometimes long and challenging peer-review process before final acceptance. Last year 1294 manuscripts were submitted and of these 28.7% were finally accepted, highlighting how rigorous the evaluations can be.

Having been involved with the journal since its inception 32 years ago, I am, of course, proud of how it has evolved over the years, and there are many people who I have to thank for this. I have been involved with many Elsevier Publishing Managers since 1988, the longest association being with Dean Eastbury, who will be well known to many MEI Conference delegates. It was a great pleasure to work with Dean, who is now retired in Cornwall, and it is now a pleasure to work with his successor in Oxford, Joshua Bayliss.

I am particularly indebted to the regular issue editors, Dr. Pablo Brito-Parada and Dr. Kristian Waters, and their team of six bright young assistant editors, and also to the members of the Editorial Board, a group of highly experienced professionals, who offer advice when needed. A full listing of the journal's Editorial team can be found on the website.

And last, but definitely by no means least, a massive thanks to the hundreds of researchers worldwide who give up their time to take part in the all important peer-review system, without which there would be no journal. The reviewers participate anonymously, although I do thank recent reviewers by listing them in the hard copies of each journal issue. I would like to remind all reviewers that in appreciation of your efforts, you can access your profile page online and collect your rewards, download your review certificates, and view your annual overview.

@barrywills