Surabaya (13/11) – The Research and Innovation Institute of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (LRI UMY) made a benchmarking visit to the Asian Journal of Accounting Research (AJAR) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) to learn best practices in scientific journal management. During the visit, Ms. Nadia received as AJAR’s Associate Editor, and the LRI UMY team gained in-depth insights into international quality journal management strategies.

AJAR, which has been operating since 2016, made a significant achievement by joining Emerald Publishing in 2018. This strategic partnership is established through a five-year contract with an investment value of around 288 million rupiah per year, which includes a payment system based on the number of published pages. The uniqueness of AJAR’s business model lies in the free Article Processing Charges (APC) policy for authors, where publication costs are borne through a contract scheme with Emerald.

In the presentation presented, Emerald Publishing acts as a publisher and a strategic partner who actively monitors the performance of journals and editorial teams. Emerald’s support includes preparation for Scopus indexing, including calculating cite score and selecting appropriate subject categories to avoid placement in quartile 4 (Q4). Emerald also handles the technical aspects of the website and holds regular meetings for journal evaluation and development.

One of the keys to AJAR’s success lies in its solid editorial management system. The Editor in Chief effectively manages an international team of editors, with a maximum workload limit of 10 manuscripts per editor per year. AJAR’s editorial team is selected with high commitment standards and evaluated regularly to ensure optimal performance.

AJAR implements an intelligent positioning strategy by focusing its coverage on research in developing countries. Despite the name “Asian Journal,” AJAR accepts manuscripts from all developing countries, providing a clear differentiation among similar journals. Standardized manuscript handling is consistently applied, both for domestic and international authors.

To increase academic impact, AJAR implements innovative strategies to increase citations. The journal actively tracks and re-invites authors with high citation track records based on the assumption that their new publications will likely receive similar attention. The editors also take an active role in promoting the journal through international forums to increase author diversity.

The partnership with Emerald proved to be very strategic in developing AJAR, which aligns with the university’s roadmap to improve the institution’s ranking. The AJAR journal management model provides valuable lessons for LRI UMY in its efforts to develop sustainable and internationally reputable scientific publications.