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<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A recent large-scale analysis found that only about 3.9% of Web of Science\u2013indexed publications (2010\u20132019)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":57034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1895],"class_list":["post-57028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-writing"],"better_featured_image":{"id":57034,"alt_text":"Journal Impact Factor & Research Policy Influence: What Really Matters","caption":"","description":" Only 3.9% of research influences policy. Learn how journal impact factors shape research agendas, what drives policy uptake, and strategies to maximize societal impact beyond JIF rankings.","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":910,"height":340,"file":"2025\/11\/Sami-EA-Blogs-Banner-910-x-340-px-17.jpg","filesize":213476,"sizes":{},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"post":57028,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Sami-EA-Blogs-Banner-910-x-340-px-17.jpg"},"acf":{"faq_main_heading":"","faq_heading_one":"Does publishing in high impact factor journals guarantee policy influence?","faq_heading_two":"What percentage of research actually influences public policy?","faq_heading_three":"What factors predict whether research will be cited in policy documents?","faq_heading_four":"Should I target high impact factor journals to increase policy uptake?","faq_heading_five":"How do high impact journals shape research agendas?","faq_heading_six":"What is DORA and why does it discourage using journal impact factors?","faq_description_one":"No, prestige alone does not guarantee policy influence. Studies show media mentions, open access, active dissemination, and policy relevance have stronger associations with policy citations than journal impact factors. Only 3.9% of Web of Science publications are cited in policy documents.","faq_description_two":"Only about 3.9% of Web of Science\u2013indexed publications from 2010-2019 were cited at least once in policy documents, showing how selective the pathway from research to policy is. Policy uptake concentrates in specific fields like social sciences, health, and life sciences.","faq_description_three":"Media coverage, open access status, social media engagement, non-academic collaborators, and explicit policy relevance predict policy citations more strongly than academic citations alone. Paywalled articles are significantly less likely to be cited in policy documents than open access publications.","faq_description_four":"Not necessarily match journals to your audience and scope rather than chasing impact factors. Specialist journals often provide deeper traction within policymaking communities for field-specific topics. Combine publication strategy with active dissemination, policy briefs, and media engagement for maximum impact.","faq_description_five":"High-impact journals influence agendas through visibility, media outreach, and resource flows. Researchers and funders prioritize topics featured in prestigious outlets. Generalist high-JIF journals promote cross-disciplinary attention, while specialized journals steer concentrated field-specific developments and incremental advances.","faq_description_six":"The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) discourages using journal-level metrics like impact factors to evaluate individual researchers or articles because JIF measures journal prestige, not article quality. DORA promotes portfolio-based evaluation emphasizing research quality, openness, and societal contribution."},"views":107,"single_webinar_page_date":null,"single_webinar_page_time":null,"session_agenda":null,"who_should_attend_this_session":null,"about_the_speaker_field":null,"co-webinar-sec":null,"co_webinar_sec_one":null,"speaker-name":null,"webinar-date":null,"webinar-time":null,"webinar-s-image":null,"custum_webinar_category":null,"authors":[{"term_id":1895,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"editor","display_name":"Enago Academy","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2ef4bc47f3ceaa56f5eb3b26f9520fad298ba36ede4f86315997ffb45db37a1f?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Academy","first_name":"Editor","job_title":"","description":"Enago Academy, the knowledge arm of Enago, offers comprehensive and up-to-date resources on academic research and scholarly publishing to all levels of scholarly professionals: students, researchers, editors, publishers, and academic societies. It is also a popular platform for networking, allowing researchers to learn, share, and discuss their experiences within their network and community. The team, which comprises subject matter experts, academicians, trainers, and technical project managers, are passionate about helping researchers at all levels establish a successful career, both within and outside academia."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57028"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57037,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57028\/revisions\/57037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57028"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=57028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}