Ranking of the property journals
Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Property Investment & Finance, Volume 32, Issue 2
Publishing in high quality journals is a top priority for all property academics. It is a key factor in shaping your academic career. While no journal ranking system is perfect and the rankings will be keenly debated, it has recently been undertaken by the Australian Business Deans Council in ranking the various business journals. This saw over 2,500 business journals ranked; this included the property journals. Journals were ranked A*, A, B and C; seeing 7 percent as A*, 20 percent as A, 30 percent as B and 43 percent as C. Rankings were done by panels, with submissions invited. The property journals were assessed in the marketing/tourism/logistics panel, comprising three professors who ranked over 350 journals. There was no direct property academic representation on this panel, but a range of submissions were made on behalf of various property journals.
Importantly, this ranking considered all of the property/property-related journals; with over 30 property/property-related journals ranked. Some journals were considered to be outside the "business" journals space and were not ranked; e.g.: Urban Studies. This ABDC journal ranking is more extensive than that seen in most of the previous US-based property journal rankings which have typically just focused on the US journals; excluding the non-US journals. Full details of the journal rankings are available at: http://www.abdc.edu.au
Here is a quick summary of the property journal rankings. No property journals received A*. Real Estate Economics and Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics received A. Journal of Property Investment and Finance, Journal of Property Research, Journal of Real Estate Research, and Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management received B. Ten other property journals were ranked C.
Importantly, Journal of Property Investment and Finance (JPIF) received a ranking of B. As seen above, this sees JPIF amongst the top ranked property journals internationally, and in fine company with its peers amongst the other high quality property journals in the B category. This further validates the international reputation and stature developed by JPIF over the last 20 years, as well as the important role of JPIF to be on your list of quality property journals to consider when publishing your property research.
But it is important to remember that no journal ranking system is perfect; it is a macro measure. There will always be debate over such journal rankings; often heated debate.
More importantly, the bigger issue is the quality of individual papers and their impact. It is better to be remembered for having done a landmark property research paper that shapes future research agendas and directions, than just knowing it was in an A journal. I have read some great papers in C ranked journals that have significantly influenced my property research agenda.
Hopefully, this gives you some benchmarks of the property journal landscape to help shape your future journal selection for your property research publications. Moving forward, it also highlights the importance of journal performance metrics such as impact factors in providing validation and shaping future journal rankings. This is a key challenge for many of our property journals who currently do not as yet have these important journal metrics available.
Graeme Newell
Guest Editor
