Choosing where to publish your research is part of the research process. While publishing generally comes at the end of a research project, it is important to think carefully about where to publish your work.

Different disciplines and research projects will require different plans and strategies. Developing a publication strategy can be a useful tool to think about what you want to do with your research and how to communicate it. It can help you think about why and how you want and need to communicate your research, as well as the audience for said communication. Developing a publication strategy is about more than traditional academic publications and can also help you think about the impact of your research.

To build your publication strategy, you will need to take into account the norms and expectations of your discipline, the type of research you are conducting, and how you want to communicate your research. In addition, a publication strategy can help clarify roles when publishing with collaborators.

Alongside the Open Access movement, the academic publishing landscape and culture are changing. Movements like DORA (of which the University of Sunderland is a signatory) aim to reform how research is assessed. This contributes to this moving picture and can incentivise researchers to think differently about how and where to publish.

Using tools such as the publication planner available from jobs.ac.uk can be helpful.