Category: European Science Editing

First Journal Impact Factor for European Science Editing

The open-access European Science Editing journal received its first Impact Factor and ranked in Q2 in Library and Information Science in the Web of Science Core Collection (ESCI).

European Science Editing, the official journal of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE), has received its first Journal Impact Factor (JIF) from Clarivate’s Web of Science. Its 2025 JIF stands at 1.6, a key milestone for the journal and a recognition of its growing influence in the scholarly communication community.

Further, the journal ranks in Q2 in Library and Information Science in the Web of Science Core Collection (ESCI).

Prior to this JIF, European Science Editing had already demonstrated strong and growing recognition in Scopus, with its 2025 CiteScore reaching 3.0, up from 2.3 in 2024, ranking in Q2 for Communication and Q3 for Health Informatics.

A key metric released by Clarivate, the 2025 Journal Impact Factor reflects the number of times content published in a specific journal during 2023 and 2024 was cited in 2025. This total citation count is then divided by the number of citable articles (i.e., research and review articles) to estimate the JIF.

European Science Editing journal homepage
Journal homepage.

The journal’s history can be traced back to 1986 when it was published as a bulletin. Then, in 2003 European Science Editing was launched as a peer-reviewed journal published four times a year, dedicated to supporting research within the scope of the Association. In January 2020, the journal converted to Diamond Open Access with a rolling publication model on the ARPHA Platform, giving authors greater presence and impact across the membership and the wider scholarly publishing community.

The journal is powered by the ARPHA Platform, a one-stop publishing solution developed by Pensoft that offers a seamless, end-to-end publishing experience encompassing all stages from manuscript submission through to publication, indexation, dissemination, and permanent archiving.

ARPHA’s robust support for academic publishing also includes a variety of human-provided services and integrations with third-party providers, intended to maximise the reach and usability of scholarly knowledge published in European Science Editing.

On this success, the Editor-in-Chief, Ksenija Bazdaric of Rijeka University, reflects:

As Editor-in-Chief of the European Science Editing journal, I am delighted by this result. With the support of ARPHA, we have received our very first impact factor of 1.6. Our Diamond Open Access journal is celebrating this big milestone and its editors and advisory board will work further on raising the journal quality by producing relevant and interesting content for our readership.

Follow EASE on LinkedIn, Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram. You can also follow ARPHA on Bluesky and LinkedIn.

The psychological burden of statistical significance in academic publishing

“The pursuit of significance is no longer just a technical issue, but a psychological burden that shapes behaviour, distorts judgement, and affects mental well-being.”

A new paper published in European Science Editing highlights the growing psychological strain on researchers driven by pressure to obtain statistically significant results in academic publishing.

Drawing on a decade of experience as an editor and statistical reviewer, Michał Ordak, an Assistant Professor at the Medical University of Warsaw, reveals how institutional, supervisory, and editorial expectations contribute to emotional distress, especially among young scholars striving to meet perceived standards of publishability.

“Between 2015 and 2025, concerns about statistical significance became a recurring theme in author responses during peer review and presubmission communication,” said Ordak. “Authors increasingly expressed fear that using appropriate statistical methods would lead to non-significant findings and reduce their chances of publication.”

This anxiety persists despite a general understanding of statistical principles among researchers. Indeed, the pressure is not due to ignorance, but to visible institutional demands and a belief that publication relies on statistically significant results.

“Requests to adjust methods purely to obtain significant outcomes have become more frequent and emotionally charged, even when such changes compromise analytical rigour,” Ordak notes. “The pursuit of significance is no longer just a technical issue, but a psychological burden that shapes behaviour, distorts judgement, and affects mental well-being.”

The pressure is particularly pronounced among PhD students and early-career researchers, who often rely on statistically significant outcomes to secure publications, funding, and careers.

Ordak describes how editorial feedback is sometimes perceived as a threat rather than an opportunity for scientific rigour, leading some researchers to justify flawed analytical choices based solely on whether the results are statistically significant. 

Critical reforms are needed to counter the problem, he suggests: “Editorial teams can help mitigate this anxiety by providing guidance on sound statistical reasoning… and by reassuring authors that rigorous methods are valued regardless of outcome.”

He urges widespread adoption of standards such as the SAMPL (Statistical Analyses and Methods in the Published Literature) guidelines, which remain underused in practice. 

Original source

Ordak M (2025) The psychological burden of statistical significance: editorial reflections from 2015 to 2025. European Science Editing 51: e164741. https://doi.org/10.3897/ese.2025.e164741 

About European Science Editing

European Science Editing is a diamond open-access journal that publishes original contributions related to scientific and scholarly editing and publishing. The official journal of the European Association of Science Editors, it is published on the ARPHA platform.