Recently, the 2025 Editorial Board Meeting and Annual Strategic Development Seminar for Sustainable Horizons, the first English academic journal launched by the Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, was successfully held on campus. The meeting was chaired by Professor Chunmiao Zheng, the journal's founding Editor-in-Chief and Vice President of the Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo. In his address, Professor Chunmiao Zheng announced that Sustainable Horizons has received its first Journal Impact Factor: 7.7, marking the journal's entry into a new phase of development.
Address by Professor Chunmiao Zheng
On October 15, Clarivate released the 2024 Journal Citation Reports (JCR). Sustainable Horizons obtained its inaugural journal impact factor of 7.7. This places the journal in the JCR Q1 (first quartile) within the Environmental Sciences category, ranking among the top journals out of 376 in the field. Sustainable Horizons is a quarterly publication. Since its launch in 2021, it has published 16 issues, featuring over 140 high-quality academic papers, with total downloads surpassing 90,000.
As the first original international English journal spearheaded by the Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, Sustainable Horizons has garnered comprehensive support from the university since its inception. Professor Chunmiao Zheng expressed particular gratitude to the editorial board members, peer reviewers, and the editorial team for their sustained contributions. The Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, a high-caliber foundation, compact yet distinguished, research oriented, and globally engaged emerging research university, consistently prioritizes enhancing original innovation capabilities. Professor Chunmiao Zheng expressed his hope that the journal will continue to build momentum, improve its publishing services and international market competitiveness, and contribute to the development of emerging research universities.
Professor Chunmiao Zheng (center) presents letters of appointment to EIT Associate Professors Yiming Qin (left) and Hua Zhong (right)
Over 60 editorial board members from China and abroad attended the meeting online and offline. During the event, Professor Chunmiao Zheng presented appointment letters to newly joined board members and awarded certificates of honor to the 2024–2025 Highly Cited Researchers.
During the thematic discussion session, attending editorial board members engaged in in-depth discussions on key topics, including optimizing the journal's core operational mechanisms, strategies for attracting submissions, expanding international collaborations, and planning special issues. The discussions helped clarify the roles and development paths for the editorial board, laying a solid foundation for the journal's sustainable and high-quality growth.
Sustainable Horizons Editorial Board Members
About Sustainable Horizons
Sustainable Horizons is co-published by the Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, the Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences, and Elsevier. It focuses on cutting-edge sustainability research and has been indexed by several international databases including ESCI (JIF 7.7), Ei Compendex, and Scopus (CiteScore Tracker 13.4). The current average time to first decision is approximately three weeks. Papers accepted before December 31, 2025, are eligible for free open-access publishing, along with figure formatting and language polishing services.
For submissions and collaborations, please contact:
sush_publishing@eitech.edu.cn
Journal Website:
https://journals.elsevier.com/sustainable-horizons
