AMSTERDAM, June 26 /PRNewswire/ --

- 43 Elsevier Journals Receive Top Category Rank; Journal Citations Grow 10 Percent; Lancet and Cell Each Increase and Retain Leadership Positions

Elsevier, the leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced highlights of its Journal Impact Factor performance in 2007. The 2007 Journal Citation Reports(c) published by ThomsonReuters, reports that 43 Elsevier journals ranked number one in their respective categories. In addition, total Elsevier journal citations grew by 10 percent (compared to an industry average of 8.9 percent).

In addition, Elsevier's flagship journals, Cell and The Lancet, both increased in impact factor: Cell jumped to 29.887 (#1 research journal in Cell Biology) and The Lancet improved by 2.8 points to 28.6.

The impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. The impact factor helps to evaluate a journal's relative importance, especially when compared with others in the same field.

Glen Campbell, Senior Vice President of U.S. Health Sciences Journals said, "Our impact factors performance is a strong sign that our continued effort to publish trusted, leading-edge STM information is contributing significantly to the continuous cycle of discovery and progress. These results reflect the truly dedicated efforts of our editors, authors, reviewers and publishing staff."

"We are very proud of the strong showing for Elsevier's journals this year both in impact factors and total number of article citations," remarked Martin Tanke, Managing Director of Science and Technology Journals. "This would not have been possible without our 7,000 editors who have helped to guide and build their journals. Building world class content in partnership with our authors, editors and publishing is one of our foremost goals."

Some of the journals that led their respective categories include:

Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (#1 in Medical Informatics);

Pain (#1 in Anesthesiology);

Annals of Emergency Medicine (#1 in Emergency Medicine);

Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (#1 in Allergy);

Water Research (#1 in Water Resources);

Trends in Ecology & Evolution (#1 in Evolutionary Biology);

Biomaterials (#1 in Materials Science, Biomaterials);

Cognitive Brain Research (#1 in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence);

Lancet Infectious Diseases (#1 in Infectious Diseases);

Lancet Neurology (#1 in Clinical Neurology);

and Progress in Polymer Science (#1 in Polymer Science).