''Public Understanding of Science'' is a bimonthly

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the ...

established in 1992 and published by

SAGE Publications Sage Publishing, formerly SAGE Publications, is an American independent academic publishing company, founded in 1965 in New York City by Sara Miller McCune and now based in the Newbury Park neighborhood of Thousand Oaks, California. Sage ...

. It covers topics in the popular perception of science, the role of science in society,

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...

science education Science education is the teaching and learning of science to school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process (the scientific method), some ...

, and science in

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...

. The

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

is Hans-Peter Peters (Research Center Jülich & Free University of Berlin, Germany).

Abstracting and indexing

''Public Understanding of Science'' is abstracted and indexed in

Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...

and the

Social Sciences Citation Index The Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) is a commercial citation index product of Clarivate Analytics. It was originally developed by the Institute for Scientific Information from the Science Citation Index. The Social Sciences Citation Index is ...

. According to the ''

Journal Citation Reports ''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publication by Clarivate. It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science Core Collection. It provides information about academic journals in the natur ...

'', its 2019 2-year

impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a type of journal ranking. Journals with higher impact factor values are considered more prestigious or important within their field. The Impact Factor of a journa ...

is 2.754, ranking it 13 out of 88 journals in the category "Communication" and 2 out of 46 journals in the category "History & Philosophy of Science".

Criticism

''Public Understanding of Science'' has been criticised for its lack of commitment to

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

, given that it publishes research about public understanding and access to scientific knowledge. Journal editors have published reasons for their position in the journal. However debate continues even within the journal's editorial team.

Editors

John Durant, 1992-1997
Bruce V. Lewenstein, 1998-2003
Edna F. Einsiedel, 2004-2009
Martin W. Bauer, 2010-2015
Massimiano Bucchi, 2016-2019
Hans-Peter Peters, 2020–present

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://pus.sagepub.com/ Academic journals established in 1992 Science education journals SAGE Publishing academic journals Bimonthly journals Philosophy journals English-language journals