Analysis of the Editorial Process of the Multidisciplinary Rural Development Journal Tropicultura

Tropicultura is a multidisciplinary journal which aims mainly at releasing research results relevant to rural development in developing countries and at improving the investigation capacities of the researchers who submit manuscripts to its editorial board. The operating process of the journal and its consequences on its output during the period 2002- 2009 were analysed by considering mainly the factors influencing the duration of the editorial work and the final acceptance of the manuscripts. The factors taken in consideration were: the field of research, the geographic origin of the data analysed, the language of writing and the country of origin of the authors. The available data were analysed using descriptive statistic methods. They were also subjected to parametric and non parametric comparisons. A total of 1,034 papers have been submitted during the investigated period to Tropicultura in different fields of rural development research, with a large proportion of papers in agronomy sensu lato (60%), and livestock production (19%). Most of the papers submitted (85.1%) came from Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by North Africa (11.2%), Asia (1.6%), Latin America (0.6%) and Europe (0.3%). The rate of acceptance (27.4%) was very low compared to other journals, mainly because of a poor design of the works or inappropriate research topics. The average time for final decision was 355 days. The non parametric classification analysis retained as major determinants for the acceptance of papers for publication in decreasing order of influence: (i) time before final decision, (ii) language, (iii) continent, (iv) Belgian cooperation priority countries, (v) Belgian cooperation partner countries, and (vi) the field of research. The data obtained are discussed in the light of the literature related to the editorial process of other scientific journals, taking into account the peculiarities of Tropicultura related to its history and to the history of the rural development actions of the Belgian cooperation. This analysis highlighted a series of possible improvements at the level of the operating process of the journal which should enable it to better achieve its goals.