Future Vision of IJARST

A journal’s future is set by the editorial decisions it commits to, not by aspirational claims. This page describes the directions IJARST is actively investing in, the constraints we work under, and what we will not do.

Where we are heading

Broader interdisciplinary coverage. Engineering and applied sciences continue to converge with computational, life-science, and policy disciplines. Our editorial board is being expanded to cover emerging interdisciplinary domains — particularly AI/ML methods in engineering research, sustainability and energy systems, and computational biology — without diluting our core science-and-technology scope.

Faster, clearer author communication. The 6-day post-acceptance production timeline is well established. The next operational target is reducing first-decision time after submission, and improving the granularity of in-progress status that authors can see on their submissions.

Stronger transparency reporting. Acceptance rates, retraction counts, average time-to-decision, and demographic distribution of authors and reviewers are all data we already track internally. We plan to publish them on an annual basis so the community can hold us accountable to the standards described in our transparency policy.

Continued open access. Every IJARST paper is published under CC BY 4.0. We are committed to keeping it that way; open access is not an upsell tier and we do not plan to introduce subscription content.

Constraints we work under

A small editorial team and a fixed APC of INR 1,600 / USD 50 per accepted paper sets a ceiling on what we can do. We do not have the resources to commission special issues at scale, run subsidised submission programmes, or fund post-publication promotion. Within those constraints, we focus our attention on the things that move the journal’s editorial quality the most: reviewer recruitment, screening rigour, and transparent communication.

What we will not do

• We will not bypass peer review for fast-track fees, conference relationships, or institutional pressure.
• We will not silently remove published papers without an erratum or retraction notice.
• We will not list editors who have not agreed to be listed or are not contactable.
• We will not claim indexing, certification, or impact-factor numbers we cannot point to a verifiable third-party record for.
• We will not introduce surcharges (page fees, colour fees, fast-track fees) on top of the published APC.

What you can hold us to

The standards described on this page, in our commitment to research quality, in our ethics & plagiarism policy, and across our other public resources are the standards we ask the community to hold us to. If we fall short, write to editorijarst@gmail.com.

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