Competition Law Journal Rankings Revisited

The ARC 2010 journal rankings are now out.  Once again our research has been re-classified retrospectively.  Once again, competition law journals fair poorly.  We have two more competition law journals classified as ‘A’, journals’, but both are foreign, with the result that there are now five foreign competition/business law journals with an A ranking and no local journals.  No competition law journals anywhere reach the A+ ranking.  Some have completely disappeared from the list.  For last year’s list see my earlier blog.  Here are the current rankings with changes noted.  (Australian journals appear in green; the list of business journals is not comprehensive):

A+

Nope, nothing here …

A

American Business Law Journal

Antitrust Law Journal

European Competition Law Review (up from a B last year)

Journal Of Business Law

World Competition: Law and Economics Review (up from a B last year)

B

Australian Business Law Review

Competition and Consumer Law Journal

International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law

Journal of Competition Law and Economics

C

(the vast majority of all journals are here)

Antitrust Bulletin

Business Law Review

Business Lawyer

Competition Law Journal

European Business Law Review

European Competition Journal

International Business Lawyer

No ranking

These ones seem to have dropped off the list – I can’t find them anyway!

Antitrust

Antitrust Law and Economics Review

Australian and New Zealand Trade Practices Law Bulletin

Competition Law Review

Global Competition Review

International Business Law Journal

Trade Practices Law Journal (this must be a mistake – I am exploring further!)

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Re-ranking is both necessary and problematic.  As researchers, our immediate status as ‘research active’ or not is determined by the ranking system and our research  ‘quality’ is also now judged by the quality ranking assigned to the journals in which we publish.  There are many problems with this – esp where the rankings are not static and the discipline areas not fairly represented – in particular, there is a very odd emphasis on publishing in foreign journals (which often means publishing about foreign law rather than concentrating research on our own; this is more of a problem in law which has many jurisdiction-specific quirks than many other areas). I previously written about my feelings regarding the current ranking system.  They have not changed (at least not for the better) following this re-ranking.

FYI, the generalist law journals rankings I’ve previously mentioned remain essentially the same, save that the Australian Law Journal has moved from C to B ranking and the Griffith Law Review has had a miraculous jump from a B ranking to an A+ ranking.

For me, I will start focusing more on comparative law with emphasis on US and European jurisdictions rather than focusing on some of the real problems we have with our own domestic competition laws …

Competition law journals lose out in ARC journal rankings

The ARC has accepted the ranking of law journals proposed (reluctantly) by the Council of Australian Law Deans and it’s not good news for competition law academics – particularly if your research is focused on domestic competition law.  With a top ranking of A+ and a bottom ranking of C, here is how the key business and competition law journals fared (Australian journals appear in red and the more general business law journals (I have only included a few) in green):

A+

Nope, nothing here …

A

American Business Law Journal

Antitrust Law Journal

Journal Of Business Law

B

Australian Business Law Review (seriously!)

Competition and Consumer Law Journal

European Competition Law Review

International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law

Journal of Competition Law and Economics

World Competition: Law and Economics Review

C

(842 journals in total get this ranking)

Antitrust

Antitrust Bulletin

Antitrust Law and Economics Review

Australian and New Zealand Trade Practices Law Bulletin

Business Law Review

Business Lawyer

Competition Law Journal

Competition Law Review

Contract Law Journal (my other passion …)

European Business Law Review

European Competition Journal

Global Competition Review

International Business Law Journal

International Business Lawyer

Trade Practices Law Journal (yes, publishing here now ranked just as highly as publishing in the ANZTP Bulletin)

————–

The generalist journal rankings appear slightly less contentious (although seriously, Australian Law Review and Australian Bar Review both get a C ranking?) but discipline specific journals seem to have been pulled from a hat (a lucky hat for some – rejoice if your research interests involve feminist, tax or even property law (human rights and philosophy also fare well)).

I particularly enjoyed the comment of one UK professor who declined involvement in the ranking process, who concluded that the list led him to admire CALD’s “collective willingness to make enemies”.

Nevertheless it seems we are stuck with it.  The consequence must be that instead of publishing in Australian professional journals likely to have the most impact on law and policy in Australia, competition academics must look primarily to US or European journals if they wish their research to have any value with their Institution or the Australian Research Council; to do this requires a shift in focus domestic issues to international or comparative issues.  This is clearly valuable – to a degree – but given the wave of competition reform we are currently experiencing in this country, any arbitrary ranking which pushes our focus from research into appropriate domestic competition policy should be discouraged.

Alternatively, of course, we can aim for the generalist university journals; most of the A+ journals are US or European and would not publish Australian competition law articles; in Australia we only really have the Melbourne Uni Law Review, Sydney Law Review or Uni of NSW Law Journal if we want a top ranking.  If prepared to settle for an A there’s ONE other Australian university journal (plenty of foreign ones though) we can add to the list: the Monash Uni Law Review.  Coming in with a B ranking we can aim for a few more Australian law journals (inc two Go8 Uni journals): the Adelaide Law Review, Flinders Journal of Law Reform, the Griffith Law Review, the University of Queensland Law Journal, the University of Tasmania Law Review and the University of WA Law Review.  Every other generalist Australian university law journal limps in level C, if at all.

There are some brilliant articles in the level C journals (and some poor ones in the A+’s).  It’s a bit like equating a world renowned professor at a small or newer university (which might be favoured for location, size, speciality etc) with a first year associate lecturer at one of the leading – old – universities merely on the basis of their employer without any reference to the individual.  It’s depressing.  It’s discouraging.  It’s simply wrong.

See also ‘Ire of the Beholder‘ by Margaret Thornton published in the Australian before the release of the final rankings.  See also ‘ARC rankings poor on law‘.