Journal rankings · indicator year 2015
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2015
Public Administration journal rankings 2015
51 ranked journals · Subfield in Social Sciences
Public Administration has 51 ranked journals in 2015. The median OJR rose 0.24 on 2014 to 1.48, above the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 1.96. The top three are Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration, and The American Review of Public Administration.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2015. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2012–2014, the window the 2015 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Social Sciences (22)
51 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2014. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2012–2014, the window the 2015 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2012–2014 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2006 to 2015. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Journal of Public Administration Research and TheoryOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 6.11Q1 | 2.47 1.13 down from 2014 | 194 | 31% | $4,029 | ||
2Public AdministrationWiley · United Kingdom | 4.37Q1 | 3.17 1.26 up from 2014 | 217 | 36% | $3,950 | ||
3The American Review of Public AdministrationSAGE Publishing · United States | 4.32Q1 | 1.97 0.54 down from 2014 | 147 | 12% | $3,900 | ||
4European Journal of Industrial RelationsSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 4.25Q1 | 2.62 0.68 up from 2014 | 85 | 25% | $3,650 | ||
5Public Management ReviewTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 3.86Q1 | 2.76 0.94 up from 2014 | 241 | 20% | — | ||
6International Review of Administrative SciencesSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 3.81Q1 | 1.71 0.03 up from 2014 | 143 | 28% | $3,650 | ||
7Public Administration ReviewWiley · United States | 3.67Q1 | 2.51 0.28 up from 2014 | 418 | 18% | $4,250 | ||
8International Public Management JournalTaylor & Francis · United States | 2.90Q1 | 2.42 0.54 up from 2014 | 79 | 23% | — | ||
9British Journal of Industrial RelationsWiley · United Kingdom | 2.90Q1 | 2.22 0.87 up from 2014 | 118 | 15% | $3,860 | ||
10Industrial Relations A Journal of Economy and SocietyWiley · United States | 2.80Q1 | 1.20 0.30 down from 2014 | 131 | 27% | $3,470 | ||
11Financial Accountability and ManagementWiley · United Kingdom | 2.54Q1 | 1.95 0.37 up from 2014 | 65 | 46% | $2,900 | ||
12Administration & SocietySAGE Publishing · United States | 2.19Q1 | 1.38 0.05 up from 2014 | 223 | 21% | $3,650 | ||
13International Journal of Public Sector ManagementEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 1.96Q1 | 1.22 0.11 down from 2014 | 129 | 19% | — | ||
14Economic and Industrial DemocracySAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.90Q2 | 1.26 0.02 up from 2014 | 144 | 33% | $3,650 | ||
15Public Money & ManagementTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.82Q2 | 1.30 0.25 up from 2014 | 231 | 19% | — | ||
16Social Work ResearchOxford University Press · United States | 1.79Q2 | 1.44 0.42 down from 2014 | 98 | 9% | — | ||
17Industrial Relations JournalWiley · United Kingdom | 1.78Q2 | 1.36 0.38 up from 2014 | 106 | 10% | $2,900 | ||
18Journal of Social Work EducationTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.77Q2 | 1.29 0.07 up from 2014 | 169 | 16% | — | ||
19The British Journal of Social WorkOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 1.76Q2 | 1.35 0.15 down from 2014 | 518 | 41% | $4,492 | ||
20Qualitative Social WorkSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.75Q2 | 1.17 0.66 down from 2014 | 127 | 24% | $3,650 | ||
21Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social WorkTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.66Q2 | 1.09 0.24 up from 2014 | 52 | 24% | — | ||
22Public Performance & Management ReviewTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.63Q2 | 1.13 0.33 up from 2014 | 164 | 18% | — | ||
23Administration in Social WorkHaworth Press · United States | 1.58Q2 | 1.25 0.35 up from 2014 | 71 | — | — | ||
24Social WorkOxford University Press · United States | 1.56Q2 | 1.39 0.37 down from 2014 | 157 | 1% | — | ||
25Journal of Industrial RelationsSAGE Publishing · Australia | 1.49Q2 | 1.16 0.07 down from 2014 | 152 | 35% | $3,650 | ||
26Public Policy and AdministrationSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.48Q2 | 1.23 0.46 up from 2014 | 104 | 19% | $3,650 | ||
27European Journal of Social WorkTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.31Q3 | 0.79 0.05 down from 2014 | 150 | 15% | — | ||
28Social Work EducationTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.31Q3 | 1.07 0.11 down from 2014 | 261 | 13% | — | ||
29Journal of Social Work PracticeTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.31Q3 | 1.37 0.28 up from 2014 | 96 | 21% | — | ||
30Labor Studies JournalSAGE Publishing · United States | 1.26Q3 | 0.82 0.23 up from 2014 | 49 | 0% | $3,400 | ||
31International Social WorkSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.04Q3 | 0.81 0.09 down from 2014 | 230 | 14% | $3,650 | ||
32Australian Social WorkTaylor & Francis · Australia | 1.02Q3 | 0.87 0.16 down from 2014 | 186 | 21% | — | ||
33Journal of Social WorkSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.98Q3 | 0.96 0.43 up from 2014 | 103 | 16% | $3,650 | ||
34Journal of Teaching in Social WorkTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.91Q3 | 0.90 0.08 up from 2014 | 123 | 7% | — | ||
35Asia Pacific Journal of Public AdministrationTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.85Q3 | 0.73 0.63 up from 2014 | 47 | 9% | — | ||
36Teaching Public AdministrationSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.80Q3 | 1.05 0.37 up from 2014 | 58 | 15% | $3,650 | ||
37Canadian Public AdministrationWiley · United Kingdom | 0.75Q3 | 0.47 0.22 down from 2014 | 113 | 10% | $2,900 | ||
38Advances in Social WorkOAIndiana University School of Social Work · United States | 0.73Q3 | 0.62 0.14 up from 2014 | 131 | 100% | — | ||
39Comparative labor law & policy journalCambridge University Press · United States | 0.73Q3 | 0.67 0.06 up from 2014 | 47 | 0% | — | ||
40PracticeTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.64Q4 | 0.54 0.19 down from 2014 | 70 | 8% | — | ||
41The Journal of Sociology & Social WelfareWestern Michigan University · United States | 0.60Q4 | 0.32no change | 269 | 63% | — | ||
42Smith College Studies in Social WorkTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.54Q4 | 0.50 0.19 up from 2014 | 80 | 3% | — | ||
43Social Work With GroupsTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.53Q4 | 0.57 0.09 up from 2014 | 119 | 0% | — | ||
44Journal of Progressive Human ServicesTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.51Q4 | 0.36 0.53 down from 2014 | 42 | 6% | — | ||
45Contemporary Rural Social Work JournalUnited States | 0.49Q4 | 0.42 0.17 down from 2014 | 31 | 77% | — | ||
46China Journal of Social WorkTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.47Q4 | 0.18 0.15 down from 2014 | 77 | 13% | — | ||
47Journal of Public Budgeting Accounting & Financial ManagementEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 0.45Q4 | 0.18 0.46 down from 2014 | 72 | 6% | — | ||
48Journal of Baccalaureate Social WorkUnited States | 0.25Q4 | 0.16 0.07 up from 2014 | 117 | 6% | — | ||
49The Journal of Practice Teaching in Health and Social WorkUnited Kingdom | 0.12Q4 | 0.35 0.20 up from 2014 | 154 | 89% | — | ||
50Journal of Comparative Social WorkOAUniversity of Stavanger · Norway | 0.07Q4 | 0.09 0.02 down from 2014 | 37 | 100% | — |
Subfields of Social Sciences, with Public Administration highlighted.
- Sociology and Political Science1,184
- Education658
- Political Science and International Relations301
- Communication65
- Gender Studies59
- Safety Research53
- Public Administration51
- Health50
- Transportation45
- Library and Information Sciences44
- Linguistics and Language43
- Law42
- Demography40
- Urban Studies40
- Anthropology37
- Geography, Planning and Development25
- Cultural Studies10
- Development4
- General Social Sciences3
- Human Factors and Ergonomics1
- Archeology0
- Life-span and Life-course Studies0
Journals
Citations made in 2015. Corpus-wide, 78.1% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
2 additional Public Administration journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2012–2014, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2015. Publication window: 2012–2014. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 51
- Window papers (baseline)
- 9,721 +11.9% from indicator year 2012
- Median OJR
- 1.48 +4.9% from indicator year 2012
- Rising journals (2025)
- 6
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2012–2014 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 39 | 39 | 44 | 46 | 46 | 46 | 45 | 46 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 51 | 51 | 50 | 51 | 51 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 51 | 49 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 5,291 | 5,454 | 5,737 | 6,096 | 6,309 | 6,459 | 7,069 | 7,550 | 8,059 | 8,152 | 8,390 | 8,538 | 8,687 | 9,064 | 9,283 | 9,721 | 9,886 | 10,257 | 9,866 | 9,630 | 9,356 | 9,519 | 9,597 | 9,348 | 9,065 | 8,961 | |
| Median OJR | 1.23 | 1.03 | 0.94 | 0.79 | 0.80 | 0.87 | 1.04 | 0.93 | 1.20 | 1.07 | 1.3317 | 1.51 | 1.41 | 1.21 | 1.239 | 1.48 | 1.3324 | 1.243 | 1.192 | 1.46 | 1.36 | 1.34 | 1.22 | 1.18 | 1.189 | 1.37 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.