Journals for Supply Chain Management and Resilience Research: SSCI, ABDC, Scopus and EI Options, With and Without Article Charges

An author sends a resilience paper to what looks like a well known logistics journal. The site carries the right title, the right ISSN, the right cover images and a familiar editorial board. Acceptance arrives in eleven days with an invoice and a bank account in a third country. The paper appears on that site, and nowhere in Scopus, because the real journal never saw it.

This is the single most expensive mistake in management and finance publishing, and supply chain is a favourite target, because the field is busy and the journal names run close together: logistics, supply chain, transport, operations, in a dozen combinations. The author who spotted it in time told us how: the domain in the invitation email did not match the domain on the publisher's own site. That was the only difference, and it was enough.

So before the tables, the rule that prevents it. Reach a journal from the publisher's own website or from the index record, never from a link inside an email. Every table below is grouped by what you pay, starting with the journals that charge nothing.

How to read a quartile before you read the list

Three ranking systems matter in this field and they do not agree. The Scopus quartile comes from Scimago, inside a Scopus subject category. The JCR quartile comes from Clarivate, inside a Web of Science category, using the impact factor. The ABDC list is a separate grading of business journals run by the Australian Business Deans Council, and in business schools it often outranks both.

The index tier matters more than any quartile. An ESCI journal shows an impact factor and a quartile that look exactly like an SSCI one on screen, so an ESCI Q1 will not satisfy a rule asking for SSCI. Where the tier is not recorded, the tables say so rather than guess, and those titles need an ISSN check on the Master Journal List. Settling this before the cover letter is the first step in Journal Submission Preparation.

Diamond open access: supply chain journals that charge nothing

These publish free to read and free to publish, funded by a society, a university or a research institute. In this subject the free tier is broader than most people expect, including three titles with a Scopus Q1 or Q2 band.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Not sure whether the journal you picked is still indexed? Run it through the Predatory Journal Checker at ai.researchramp.com, or send us the title on WhatsApp or WeChat for a same-day check. Two minutes to spare instead? Try the Smart Quiz.

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Web of Science options: SSCI, SCIE and ESCI

The senior journals of the discipline sit here, and most of them are subscription titles, which means no APC and a long wait. The AI Journal Finder will match your abstract against these in seconds.

Scopus-indexed options, Q1 to Q4

These carry a Scopus quartile, some with a Web of Science tier that needs checking by ISSN. For a Scopus requirement this is the practical table, and the lower rows are where a first paper realistically lands. Planning two or three papers rather than one is the Mentorship Program.

EI Compendex indexed journals

The engineering side of operations. Submit here when the contribution is a model or an algorithm and the supply chain is the application.

Indexed conference routes in supply chain research

Conferences work in this field when a disruption is current and the finding will date. Indexing is decided one volume at a time, so check the coming edition rather than the reputation of the series.

What a major revision looks like in this field

Supply chain journals revise hard. A major revision here is not a polish, and authors who treat it as one lose the paper at the second round. Five things come back almost every time.

1. Endogeneity, raised as a threat rather than a footnote. Resilience and performance are jointly determined, and reviewers say so. Expect to add an instrument, a lagged design, a Heckman correction or a propensity match, and to justify the choice rather than run all four.
2. Common method bias, if your data are one survey. Harman's single factor test is no longer accepted on its own. Reviewers ask for a marker variable, separated data collection or a second respondent per firm.
3. The theory, made to earn its place. Citing the resource-based view or dynamic capabilities once is not theorising. You will be asked which specific mechanism your data test and what would have falsified it.
4. Construct overlap. Resilience, robustness, agility and flexibility are measured with overlapping items across the literature. Expect to justify your scale and show discriminant validity, usually through the heterotrait-monotrait ratio.
5. Boundary conditions. One country, one tier, one disruption, and a reviewer asking what happens outside that. A tested moderator answers it better than a paragraph in the limitations.

Two practical points. Answer every comment in a numbered response letter, even the ones you decline, and say plainly where the manuscript changed. That round is Review & Response Support, and where the fix needs a second country or a second dataset, Collaboration Matching.

What gets accepted in this field, and what gets rejected

Supply chain resilience became crowded after 2020, and the filter tightened with it.

Is ABDC A the same as Scopus Q1 for supply chain research?

No, they are separate systems built by different bodies. ABDC is a grading of business journals maintained by the Australian Business Deans Council, using A*, A, B and C, while a Scopus quartile is a citation ranking inside a Scopus subject category.

A journal can hold ABDC A and sit in Scopus Q2, or hold Scopus Q1 with no ABDC grade at all. In supply chain this gap is common, because several strong open access titles are too new for the ABDC list while already ranking well in Scopus.

Which supply chain research journals are on the ABDC list?

Most of the senior titles in the Web of Science table above appear on it, with the Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Business Logistics, Production and Operations Management and Transportation Research Part E generally sitting at the top of the grading. ABDC publishes the list itself and reviews it periodically, so confirm the current grade on the ABDC site rather than relying on any secondary page, including this one.

The newer open access titles, and most of the Diamond journals listed here, do not appear on the list at all. That is a question of age, not quality, but if your school assesses on ABDC it decides where you submit.

What counts as an A star journal in supply chain research?

A star, written A*, is the top ABDC band and covers a small group of journals judged to be the best in the discipline worldwide. In this subject that group is roughly the half dozen senior titles at the head of the Web of Science table above.

Treat A* as a multi-year target rather than a first submission. Acceptance rates sit in the single digits at several of them, and a rejection after six months costs more than a Q1 acceptance elsewhere earns.

Does my business school accept a Scopus Q1 that is not ABDC ranked?

Some do and some do not, and the rule is written locally. Where a school assesses on ABDC, an unranked Scopus Q1 can count for nothing in a promotion case even though it counts for graduation, which is the single most expensive misunderstanding in this field.

Ask for the recognised journal policy in writing before you choose a venue, and check whether the school names a specific ABDC edition, since grades move between editions.

Which supply chain research journals were discontinued by Scopus recently?

Scopus publishes discontinued titles in a separate file from the active source list, and this page lists active titles only, so no delisted list is given here. Download the discontinued sources file from Elsevier and search your ISSN in it before you submit.

Delisting is more common in this subject than in most, because logistics and operations attract fast-growing open access titles that later fail a quality review. A journal that was safe two years ago is not evidence about today.

How long is the gap between a Scopus delisting and the journal still claiming indexing?

Indefinitely, in practice, because nothing obliges a journal to remove the claim from its own website. We regularly see titles advertising Scopus coverage a year or more after the discontinuation date, sometimes with the old coverage years still displayed.

That is why the journal's own site is never evidence. The only current answer is the live Scopus source list and the discontinued file, checked on the day you submit.

How much does it cost to publish a supply chain paper in an indexed journal?

It can be nothing at all. Eleven titles on this page charge no article fee, and most of the senior SSCI journals are subscription, which means no APC unless you choose the open access option at the licence stage.

Where a fee does apply, the range on this page runs from about 180 USD to 2,000 USD, and the price bears no relation to the quartile: the cheapest indexed title here is Scopus Q3, and the most expensive is a young Q1.

Is a Scopus Q3 paper in supply chain research enough for a PhD submission?

For most universities, yes, because the usual requirement names the index rather than the quartile, and a Q3 article is a Scopus-indexed article. Some programmes specify Q1 or Q2, and a few name ABDC, in which case it is not enough.

Get the requirement in writing at the start of the final year, not at the end. It decides which of the tables above you should be reading, and a Q3 acceptance in twelve weeks beats a Q1 rejection in nine months when the deadline is fixed.

What editors screen before a reviewer sees your paper

The editorial office checks whether the English is clear enough to review, whether the structure and reference style match the journal, and what the similarity report says. In this field the similarity score often rises innocently, because scale items and standard method text repeat across papers. Run your own check first with the Plagiarism & AI Similarity Checker, and settle the language and formatting through Manuscript Editing rather than after a rejection.

Where Research Ramp comes in

We match a finished abstract against live indexing, tell you plainly when a design will not survive the first screen, and prepare the submission so the editorial office has no reason to bounce it on formatting. Subject-matched PhD editors, milestone payments, and the author stays the author throughout. Getting a draft ready for a specific target is Manuscript Preparation Support, and past work is on our Case Studies page.

Questions we are asked about quartiles

Send us the abstract, we will send back the shortlist

Send us your abstract and we will return a shortlist that separates SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, Scopus and EI options, with the access model marked against each. Tap the WhatsApp icon, or scan the WeChat code. To hand over the whole route from venue choice to acceptance, that is the Full Publication Package.

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发送摘要，即可获得按检索类型分层的期刊清单。

Disclaimer. Every table on this page is correct as on October 2026 and no later. Article charges shown in US dollars are approximate conversions at October 2026 rates, and journals bill in their own currency. Indexing, quartile, access model and charges change through the year, and journals can be added to or removed from Scopus and Web of Science at any time. This page is general information only. Research Ramp Private Limited accepts no responsibility or liability for any decision made on the basis of it, including the choice of journal, any charge paid, or the outcome of any submission. Every detail must be independently verified by the author with the journal's own website and the live Scopus source list and Web of Science Master Journal List before submitting. If you would like an informal second check, send us the title and we will look at it for you.

本页所有列表数据截至 2026 年 10 月，仅供一般参考。Research Ramp 不对任何依据本页作出的选刊、付费或投稿结果承担责任。投稿前请务必通过期刊官网及 Scopus、Web of Science 实时数据自行核实收录情况与费用。