Journal profile · Medicine-Surgery
Global Spine Journal
ISSN 2192-5682 · eISSN 2192-5690 · SAGE · GERMANY
Global Spine Journal: CAS Zone 3 · Medicine (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 3.01; fully open access; APC about USD 2,650; review about 8 weeks (community reports); 478 articles in 2025; indexed in SCIE and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Global Spine Journal is published by SAGE and is in Zone 3 of Medicine in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Spine and Intervertebral Disc Pathology, Spinal Fractures and Fixation Techniques and Cervical and Thoracic Myelopathy, together about 55.5% of its articles. Its main subfields are Surgery. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Journal HighlightsIndexed In: Emerging Science Citation Index (ESCI), PubMed Central (PMC), SCOPUS, and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ...
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Medicine-Surgery
Editor-in-chief Jens R. ChapmanPublisher website
Editorial board by country: 2 in mainland China (about 5%); most named United States 17, Germany 5, Mainland China 2, Japan 2, United Kingdom 1 (39 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Spine and Intervertebral Disc PathologyMedicine27.1%
- Spinal Fractures and Fixation TechniquesMedicine15.6%
- Cervical and Thoracic MyelopathyMedicine12.9%
- Scoliosis diagnosis and treatmentMedicine10.2%
- Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitationMedicine6.5%
- Medical Imaging and AnalysisEngineering4.8%
- Management of metastatic bone diseaseMedicine2.6%
- Pelvic and Acetabular InjuriesMedicine2.5%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Clinical Neurology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Orthopedics | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Clinical Neurology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Orthopedics | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Clinical Neurology | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Orthopedics | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SCIEScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 3.01LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 3.1Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher)
- 3.6Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 7.1LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 1.31LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.99LetPub ·
- h-index
- 85OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 1,324OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 2.45OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 9.7%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 376LetPub ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 4,933 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 367 | 367 | 130 |
| 2025 | 478 | 478 | 911 |
| 2024 | 276 | 276 | 1,707 |
| 2023 | 235 | 235 | 1,875 |
| 2022 | 294 | 294 | 4,609 |
| 2021 | 313 | 313 | 4,584 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 8 weeksLetPub ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 8 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Double anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | USD 2,650 | Yes | CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-ND | |
| OpenAlex | USD 2,650 | — | — | |
| LetPub | USD 2,650 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | USD 3,360 / USD 105 | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare6 items from the author guidelines
- Abstract
- ≤ 250 words
- Keywords
- ≥ 4
- Reference style
- AMA
- Suggested reviewers
- Optional
- Graphical abstract
- Optional
- Not considered
- case reports; special issue article types
Article types accepted17
- brief communicationWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- case reportWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- letterWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- letter to the editorWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- letters to the editorWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- literature reviewWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- narrative reviewWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- original researchWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- original research articleWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- protocolWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- registered reportWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- registered reports – post-dataRegistered Reports – Post-Data, i.e., before already existing data have been examined and analysed.Length not stated
- registered reports – pre-dataThere are two types of Registered Reports: Registered Reports – Pre-Data, i.e., before any data have been gatheredLength not stated
- reviewGSJ publishes Original Research and Review articles.Length not stated
- review articleWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- systematic reviewWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
- viewpointWhen submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Revi…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, Data availability, Publication ethics, Open access, Peer review, Plagiarism, Preprints, Trial registration / reporting guidelines
- Authorship Author contributions
You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please include the Author Contributions heading within your submission after the Acknowledgements section. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Data availability Data availability
The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages. Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to: Share your research data in a relevant public data repository Include a data ava…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Publication ethics Ethical considerations
Member of Committee on Publication Ethics Model summary
Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Publishing fees and open access
Global Spine Journal is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. All accepted articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication, are published under a Creative Commons license, and hosted online in perpetuity. If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable to cover the cost of publishing, paid by the fund…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
Double anonymized peer review Model summary
The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal: Identity transparency: Double-anonymized Reviewer interacts with: Editor Review information published: None Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscripts may be desk rejec…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Plagiarism Plagiarism
The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprints
The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers. Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission. Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Trial registration / reporting guidelines Clinical trial registration
The journal conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first participant enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- SAGE
- Country or region
- GERMANY
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2192-5682
- Electronic ISSN
- 2192-5690
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗OpenAlex
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Global Spine Journal
What CAS zone is Global Spine Journal in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Global Spine Journal is in Zone 3 of Medicine, and in Zone 3 of the minor category Clinical Neurology / Orthopedics. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Medicine. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Global Spine Journal?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 3.01; CiteScore 7.1, h-index 85.
How long does peer review take at Global Spine Journal?
Authors report an average review time of about 8 weeks. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of Global Spine Journal?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Abstract: ≤ 250 words; Keywords: ≥ 4; Reference style: AMA; Suggested reviewers: Optional; Graphical abstract: Optional. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of Global Spine Journal based?
Of the 39 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 2 (about 5%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are United States (17), Germany (5) and Mainland China (2). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Global Spine Journal?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Global Spine Journal is indexed in SCIE, Scopus and DOAJ.
Is Global Spine Journal open access, and what is the APC?
Global Spine Journal is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 2,650.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, DOAJ, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .