Design research journal ranking study: preliminary results

Australian universities recently received a list of journals from the Australian Research Council (ARC). This list was the proposed set of journal rankings for the new Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative. This list includes journals for design and design research. Few design research journals appear on the list, and moist of those few have low rankings. The ERA journal-ranking proposal is intended to cover all appropriate journals across all fields. Journal rankings for any specific field should represent an appropriate distribution of journals for that field. Journals are described as A* journals representing the top 5% of journals in a field, A journals representing the next 15%, B journals representing the next 20%, and C journals for all the rest. The political and financial importance of the ranking system is one aspect of the new government’s move from the former Research Quality Framework (RQF) to the new metric assessment system developed for the ERA. We identified several problems in reviewing the proposed list. Some problems affect the field of design and design research. Other problems affect all sectors. To examine some of these problems, we will refer to the results of our study. We therefore outline our study before going further. To identify appropriate journals for the design sector, we conducted a worldwide study by inviting leading scholars in design and design research to list leading journals in the field. Our next study will use several comparative methods to measure the validity of this first study and to draw on a larger sample with more definitive results. We hope to develop a more fine-grained analysis to answer questions we do not address here. We are completing this study in the time required to meet ARC response deadlines. This the first study of its kind in the field, based on a large and reliable sample. The titles are well known. The reputations, impact factors, and index standing of the top journals supports our results. Based on responses to the survey, the journals that we will recommend for the levels designated A*, A, and B follow.