Journals for URE Studies
Listed here in alphabetical order are journals that publish and discuss URE-related works. When a journal’s homepage has provided a description, it is also listed here in quotations.
Where applicable, listings will specify if a journal is open access, supports open access, or is considered a transformative journal by Plan-S (find out more about TJ status here: https://www.coalition-s.org/transformative-journals-faq/)
(Don’t see a journal that should be here? Contact us.)
- Supports open access
“The American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) is the flagship journal of the American Educational Research Association, featuring articles that advance the empirical, theoretical, and methodological understanding of education and learning. It publishes original peer-reviewed analyses that span the field of education research across all subfields and disciplines and all levels of analysis. It also encourages submissions across all levels of education throughout the life span and all forms of learning. AERJ welcomes submissions of the highest quality, reflecting a wide range of perspectives, topics, contexts, and methods, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work.”
- Supports open access
“Each issue of the American Journal of Evaluation (AJE) explores decisions and challenges related to conceptualizing, designing and conducting evaluations. AJE offers original, peer-reviewed, often highly cited articles about the methods, theory, ethics, politics, and practice of evaluation. AJE also provides essay-length reviews of books on a single topic or issue relevant to the theory and practice of evaluation and the role of evaluation in society.
AJE features broad, multidisciplinary perspectives on issues in evaluation relevant to education, public administration, behavioral sciences, human services, health sciences, sociology, criminology and other disciplines and professional practice fields.”
- Open access
“BMC Health Services Research is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of health services research. The journal has a special focus on digital health, governance, health policy, health system quality and safety, healthcare delivery and access to healthcare, healthcare financing and economics, implementing reform, and the health workforce.”
- Open access
“BMC Public Health is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on the epidemiology of disease and the understanding of all aspects of public health. The journal has a special focus on the social determinants of health, the environmental, behavioral, and occupational correlates of health and disease, and the impact of health policies, practices and interventions on the community.”
- Open access
“Educational Research Review is an international journal addressed to researchers and various agencies interested in the review of studies and theoretical papers in education at any level. The journal accepts high quality articles that are solving educational research problems by using a review approach. This may include thematic or methodological reviews, or meta-analyses. The journal does not limit its scope to any age range. The journal invites articles on the broad range of settings in which people learn and are educated (school settings, corporate training, formal or informal settings, etc.).
Empirical studies or theoretical contributions that do not include a critical review analysis are not accepted.”
- Supports open access
“Evaluation and Program Planning is based on the principle that the techniques and methods of evaluation and planning transcend the boundaries of specific fields and that relevant contributions to these areas come from people representing many different positions, intellectual traditions, and interests. In order to further the development of evaluation and planning, we publish articles from the private and public sectors in a wide range of areas: organizational development and behavior, training, planning, human resource development, health and mental wellbeing, social services, corrections, substance abuse, and education. The primary goals of the journal are to assist evaluators and planners to improve the practice of their professions, to develop their skills and to improve their knowledge base.”
- Supports open access
“Evidence & Policy is the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to comprehensive and critical assessment of the relationship between researchers and the evidence they produce and the concerns of policy makers and practitioners.
International in scope and interdisciplinary in focus, it addresses the needs of those who develop public policies, provide public services, or provide the research base for evaluation and development across a wide range of social and public policy issues (e.g. criminal justice, employment and welfare, education, environmental protection, finance, health, housing, international development, social care and transport), and those who are working to connect the two (such as knowledge brokers).
As well as more traditional research articles, the journal includes review and method articles, contemporary debate pieces and articles from practice.”
- Open access companion journal: Health Policy OPEN
“Health Policy aims to inform discussions about how to improve health policies by publishing high quality research articles with clear policy implications that are relevant for an international audience. It intends to enhance communication between (1) researchers analysing health systems, health policies, and health reforms and (2) legislators, decision-makers and professionals concerned with developing and implementing these policies. Health Policy is an interdisciplinary journal at the interface between health policy, health systems research, health services research, health economics, health care management, political and policy sciences, public health, and related disciplines. The focus is on high-income countries, primarily outside the US.
More background on Health Policy’s aims and scope is provided in this editorial (Quentin et al. 2023).”
- Supports open access
- Transformative journal
“Health Policy and Planning publishes health policy and systems research focusing on low- and middle-income countries.
Our journal provides an international forum for publishing original and high-quality research that addresses questions pertinent to policy-makers, public health researchers and practitioners. Health Policy and Planning is published 10 times a year.”
- Open access
“Health Research Policy and Systems covers all aspects of the organisation and use of health research – including agenda setting, building health research capacity, and how research as a whole benefits decision makers, practitioners in health and related fields, and society at large.”
- Open access
“Implementation Science publishes research relevant to the scientific study of methods to promote the uptake of research findings into routine healthcare in clinical, organizational, or policy contexts.”
“IJEPL is a refereed electronic journal dedicated to enriching the education policy, leadership, and research use knowledge bases, and promoting exploration and analysis of policy alternatives.”
International Journal of Health Policy and Management (IJHPM) is an open access and peer-reviewed journal, which serves as an international and interdisciplinary setting for the dissemination of health policy and management research. It brings together individual specialties from different fields, notably health management, health policy, and health economics into a dynamic academic mix.
- Supports open access
“The International Social Science Journal bridges social science communities across disciplines and continents, focusing particularly on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work that pushes the boundaries of current approaches, both applied and theoretical.
Originally founded by UNESCO in 1949, ISSJ has since grown into a forum for innovative review, reflection and discussion informed by recent and ongoing international, social science research. It provides a home for work that has implications across the disciplines and beyond the academy.”
- Supports open access
“JBI Evidence Implementation is an official journal of JBI. It is an international peer-reviewed, online journal that publishes manuscripts encompassing evidence implementation and implementation science within a healthcare context. JBI Evidence Implementation is a premium platform for the dissemination of rigorous, high-quality papers that advance the theoretical, methodological and measurement aspects of the science of implementation that informs healthcare practice, including organisational and policy making environments.”
- Supports open access
“The Journal of Educational Research is a well-known and respected periodical that reaches an international audience of educators and others concerned with cutting-edge theories and proposals. For more than 100 years, the journal has contributed to the advancement of educational practice in elementary and secondary schools by judicious study of the latest trends, examination of new procedures, evaluation of traditional practices, and replication of previous research for validation. The journal is an invaluable resource for teachers, counselors, supervisors, administrators, curriculum planners, and educational researchers as they consider the structure of tomorrow’s curricula. Special issues examine major education issues in depth. Topics of recent themes include methodology, motivation, and literacy.”
“A leading journal in its field, and the primary source of communication across the many disciplines it serves, the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law focuses on the initiation, formulation, and implementation of health policy and analyzes the relations between government and health—past, present, and future.”
- Supports open access
“With ever increasing pressure for health services in all countries to meet rising demands, improve their quality and efficiency, and to be more accountable; the need for rigorous research and policy analysis has never been greater. The Journal of Health Services Research & Policy presents the latest scientific research, insightful overviews and reflections on underlying issues, and innovative, thought provoking contributions from leading academics and policy-makers. It provides ideas and hope for solving dilemmas that confront all countries.”
- Supports open access
“Continuously published since 1923, The Milbank Quarterly is a multidisciplinary journal of population health and health policy. It presents original research, synthesis, policy analysis, and commentary from leading thinkers, policymakers, and practitioners. The Quarterly’s goal is to publish scholarly papers that illuminate and add new insights to our understanding of important policy issues involving health and health care. Our audience includes the academic community, researchers working in all types of settings, and decision makers in both the public and private sectors.”
- Supports open access
“This quarterly journal covers the latest developments in higher education relevant to researchers of and practitioners in colleges and universities across the globe. Volumes in the series are primarily themed, self-contained, fully indexed and edited collections featuring contributions from some of the top scholars in the field. The journal is presently expanding its publication opportunities to welcome international open submissions of single articles on current hot topics in higher education that address contemporary concerns in the field. There will also be some issues in which there will be open calls for articles that address a particular theme or topic.”
- Supports open access
“Policy & Politics is a world-leading journal that provides the primary outlet for scholars and reflexive practitioners to engage with the most pressing governance challenges inhibiting the continued advancement in the study of public policy and its practice. These challenges span the globe and link communities in a common struggle to realise and sustain human dignity and quality of life for all. Moreover, they entail questions about: the impact on governance of political inequality and economic inequality; the implications of such inequalities on political voice and who receives help and who faces barriers from our public policies; how we advance knowledge about public policies comparatively as global phenomena; how we link across macro and micro scales within and between countries in understanding public policy and politics; advancing our theories and methodologies to address these challenges as a policy community; and bringing together a public policy research community that is interconnected globally but also sometimes siloed in distinct approaches and assumptions.”
- Open access
“Policy Design and Practice (PDP) is an open access peer reviewed journal and a key source of fresh ideas for improving public policy throughout the world.
PDP articles highlight the scope and significance of critical policy problems and analyse efforts to address them, ending with suggestions for improvement targeted to policy practitioners. PDP articles synthesize existing research on a topic as well as offer the author’s own interpretation of problems and solutions in key contemporary policy areas.”
- Supports open access
“Research Evaluation is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed, international journal. Its subject matter is the evaluation of activities concerned with scientific research, technological development and innovation. This covers a very broad range of potential topics.”
Social Science and Medicine
- Supports open access
“Social Science & Medicine provides an international and interdisciplinary forum for the dissemination of social science research on health. We publish original research articles (both empirical and theoretical), reviews, position papers and commentaries on health issues, to inform current research, policy and practice in all areas of common interest to social scientists, health practitioners, and policy makers. The journal publishes material relevant to any aspect of health from a wide range of social science disciplines (anthropology, economics, epidemiology, geography, policy, psychology, and sociology), and material relevant to the social sciences from any of the professions concerned with physical and mental health, health care, clinical practice, and health policy and organization. We encourage material which is of general interest to an international readership.”