PDR Impact Factor

This is just a note to document steps taken to quickly produce four/five issues of PDR so that we can get production on timeline, which is a requirement for being indexed. Once we get indexed, it is my hope that we will soon acquire an impact factor, which would make us the first economics journal with impact factor in Pakistan. This should substantially improve high quality submissions to the journal.

We have taken steps to streamline the review process, and hope to move towards one where we can guarantee completion of review in three months. This turnaround time is a very important factor in decisions of authors about where to submit papers. If we have a quick turnaround time, it will increase both the quantity and quality of papers submitted to PDR.

Dr. Musleh ud Din: is now executive editor, and a new structure is in place for review of articles submitted to PIDE. Online submission system and other changes to improve efficiency to be implemented after study. Main Task of Dr. Musleh ud Din is to produce two issues from already present submissions QUICKLY -- this just involves clearly backlog of submitted papers by speeding up the publication process.

Afia Malik: Is responsible for producing a special issue on Energy, just by selecting high quality papers presented at PSDE AGM 2013, and getting them processed for a regular journal publication, after getting consent from the authors.

Dr. GM Arif is responsible for finalizing Panel Data papers and producing a special issue based on these papers.

Dr. Munir is responsible for producing a special issue on Climate Change, which will be based on outputs from the IDRC project, as well as any other suitable papers.

Dr. Hassan Mohsin is responsible for co-ordinating with Dr Ali Kutan as a guest editor for a special issue of PDR

Please put interim progress reports on these projects on the PIDE Faculty blog next week Friday 14th February.

The committee members nominated Dr. Musleh ud Din as Executive Editor. For administrative and technical support, the committee members proposed the names of Mr. Nabeel Anwar and Dr. Nasir Iqbal respectively.

It was also decided that Mian Imran ul Haq and Mr. Nabeel will coordinate with the ICT Division for the designing of a separate web site for PDR.

Dr. Hassan M. Mohsin will coordinate with Professor Ali Kutan.

Committee members proposed that to increase the number of submissions for PDR, fresh lot of staff members who have recently completed their PhD must be asked to submit articles for PDR. Dr. Asad Zaman: To have meeting with recent PhD's.

Ms. Afia Malik - to produce Special Issue for PSDE Conference papers.

As suggested by some, we are trying to get this accomplished on “war footing.” Two meetings have been held, and two reports written. Minutes will be circulated soon, insha Allah; these detail a lot of actions to be undertaken to generate more papers, and quick publication of four issues to make up the publication lag. Some actionable items are as follows.

ACTION 1: Many faculty have contacts with top notch academics. All of them are requested to write to their contacts and request submission of one article to PDR – failing this, they may be required to write one themselves ): [All Faculty: to think about how to generate one good paper for PIDE, by writing to suitable contact]

ACTION 2: I have many unfinished papers and paper ideas, which I would be most happy to share with interested faculty and give them co-authorships. I have heard that authorities of academic organizations sometimes “steal” papers by asking junior faculty to write and then claim either joint or sole authorship. I have the opposite approach; I am quite happy to give full credit to junior faculty for my drafts or ideas if they work to develop it into a publishable paper. So this could also be one source of papers for PDR. [Interested Faculty: Contact me for paper ideas]

Minutes of the Meeting of the Permanent Editor

Dr. Muslehuddin is head of committee to improve the entire editorial process, eliminate publication lag, and acquire a respectable impact factor.

Suggested Measures: Many types of actions can help improve impact factor. A few suggestions are as follows:

• 1. For those who have personal contact with some famous scholars, they should write and solicit articles for PDR.

  2. Reviews and Surveys get a lot more citations than other articles. We should arrange to have a review of some field or the other every so often.

  3. For articles we publish, we should try to ensure that related article previously published in PDR are cited in that article.

There are many other measures which the committee may look into.