The latest Impact Factor Rankings have been released and the BSA has reason to celebrate. All four of journals have reached their highest Impact Factors ever in their respective histories. More significantly all of the journals have improved their rankings.

These rankings are a tribute to the dedication of many individuals who come together to develop the articles that are published in BSA journals – our Editors, our Board Members, our peer reviewers and the BSA and SAGE staff.

Cultural Sociology

• Highest Impact Factor ever: 1.792
• Cultural Sociology is ranked 84/149 in the “Sociology” category, up by one place since last year.

Sociological Research Online

• Highest Impact Factor ever: 2.417
• Sociological Research Online is ranked 56/149 in the “Sociology” category, up by thirty-three places since last year.

Sociology

• Highest Impact Factor ever: 4.816
• Sociology is ranked 8/149 in the Sociology JCR category, up by two places since last year.

Work, Employment & Society

• Highest Impact Factor ever: 5.116
• Work, Employment & Society is ranked as follows:
  • 7/149 in the Sociology category, up by 2 places
  • 2/30 in the Industrial Relations & Labour category, up by 3 places
  • 32/377 in the Economics category, up by 22 places

Full details of our Editors and Board members and also how to submit a paper are available on each journal website.

• Cultural Sociology
• Sociological Research Online
• Sociology
• Work, Employment & Society

Changes to the Impact Factor Calculation

With the 2020 Impact Factor, Clarivate has introduced Early Access content in Journal Citation Reports to more accurately reflect the dynamic citation environment of rapid online publication, phasing in further changes over three years.

This means that the 2020 Impact Factor prioritized the online publication date rather than the print publication date to calculate citations to a journal in 2020 (we only see changes in the numerator of the Impact Factor equation). The 2021 Impact Factor (published in June 2022) will prioritize the online publication date for the citing article data (numerator) as well as half the denominator data (2020 citable items). The 2022 Impact Factor (published in June 2023) will prioritize the online publication date for both the citing (numerator) and cited (denominator) article data in the Impact Factor equation.

As a result, several journals with high volumes of online, ahead-of-print articles have seen inflation in their Impact Factors for 2020. We expect most of these increases to drop off with the 2021 Impact Factors next year.