According to the latest Thomson Reuters Impact Factors, the International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology (IRSEP), an academic journal from the UCD School of Psychology has topped its field based on its first impact factor of 3.353 – making it the world’s highest ranked journal in the field of sport psychology and the 5th highest ranked (out of 75 journals) in the field of “applied psychology”.
Founder and inaugural Editor-in-Chief of the Journal, Professor Aidan Moran, UCD School of Psychology, welcomed the news. “IRSEP’s extraordinary impact highlights the enduring need within psychology for the availability of high-quality, critical literature reviews,” he said.
First published in 2008, IRSEP specialises in providing evaluative and integrative reviews of research literature on theories and “cutting edge” topics (e.g. motor imagery) at the interface between sport and exercise psychology and other branches of the discipline (e.g. cognitive neuroscience). To date, it has published 68 such reviews.
Typically, the reviews evaluate relevant conceptual and methodological issues in the field and provide a critique of the strengths and weaknesses of empirical studies that address common themes or hypotheses. The reviews present summaries of, and conclusions about, the current state of knowledge concerning topics of interest, as well as assessments of relevant unresolved issues and future trends. Reviews of research literature on theories, topics and issues that are at the interface with mainstream psychology are especially welcome. All manuscript submissions are subject to initial appraisal by the Editor, and, if found suitable for further consideration, to peer review by independent expert referees.
“IRSEP success is rooted in teamwork and would not been possible without the wonderful support that I’ve received from Dr Kate Kirby, my Editorial Assistant; my Associate Editors – Professor Cathy Craig and Dr John Kremer (both Queen’s University, Belfast); Dr Pete Coffee, Dr Trish Gorely, Professor David Lavallee (all University of Stirling), Dr Tadhg MacIntyre (University of Limerick) and Professor Nanette Mutrie (University of Edinburgh); the 28 leading scholars on our international editorial board; all the editorial and production staff at Taylor & Francis; and, of course, from our anonymous manuscript reviewers whose dedicated but invisible work often goes unheralded,” Professor Moran added.
