Systems & Control Letters

Systems & Control Letters is published by Elsevier and is in Zone 3 of Computer Science in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Stability and Control of Uncertain Systems, Adaptive Control of Nonlinear Systems and Stability and Controllability of Differential Equations, together about 32.3% of its articles. Its main subfields are Control and Systems Engineering. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)

Founded in 1981 by two of the pre-eminent control theorists, Roger Brockett and Jan Willems, Systems & Control Letters is one of the leading journals in the field of control theory. The aim of the journal is to allow dissemination of relatively concise but highly original contributions whose high initial quality enables a relatively rapid review process. All aspects of the fields of systems and control are covered, especially mathematically-oriented and theoretical papers that have a clear relevance to engineering, physical and biological sciences, and even economics. Application-oriented papers with sophisticated and rigorous mathematical elements are also welcome. Expressly excluded from SCL's scope are the following topics: fractional-order systems, designs employing fuzzy-neural network approximations, all but the most mathematically sophisticated embodiments of sliding-mode control, "dynamic surface control", adaptive control under unknown sign of high-frequency gain (Nussbaum gain algorithms), the so-called "multi-dimensional" systems (discrete-time/discrete-space systems inspired by image processing), all applications not entailing significant theoretical advances, and all papers with analytical developments not resulting in rigorous "theorem-proof" formulations of the results.Articles published in SCL rarely exceed 8-10 pages in Elsevier's two-column format. However, submission on topics of a technically demanding nature (for example, stochastic control, PDE control, etc.), where even concisely crafted proofs cannot fit into the said page limit, are also welcome, as long as their initial quality is high and permits editorial processing that typically takes no more than two rounds of review. (Initial quality refers to originality, relevance, correctness, clarity of exposition, and comprehensive awareness of literature in the paper's first draft.)Following the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, signed by Elsevier and over 2,000 organizations and 16,000 researchers, authors of submissions to SCL should cite primary literature, in which observations are first reported, rather than limiting themselves to citing surveys and predominantly recent contributions. Additionally, geographically limited perspectives on the literature are not appropriate for submissions to a global journal like SCL. This policy aims for a proper attribution of credit, authors' adequate assessment of their own contributions, and those undertaking follow-up research effort not being misguided regarding the state of the art on a topic to which they will dedicate much time and their career hopes. The editors may reject an article containing such lapses, either after the deficiencies are not corrected to the editors' satisfaction upon being pointed out by editors or reviewers, or immediately upon submission if the deficiencies require a degree of editorial input that is more commonly associated with acting as a co-author than as an editor or reviewer.

From the journal's Aims & Scope

Research area (LetPub): Operations Research & Management Science

Editor-in-chief Emilia FridmanPublisher website

Editorial board by country: 18 in mainland China (about 29%); most named Mainland China 18, France 12, United States 8, Italy 4, Netherlands 4 (62 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website · 2026-10-01

CAS Journal Ranking

Database indexing

SCIEScopusLetPub

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.

Impact

Impact factor

2.82LetPub · 2026-09-13

Impact factor (publisher)

2.8Publisher website · 2026-10-01

CiteScore 2026-06

4.5LetPub · 2026-09-13

CiteScore (publisher)

4.5Publisher website · 2026-10-01

SJR 2026-06

1.3LetPub · 2026-09-13

SNIP 2026-06

1.27LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

122LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

195OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

i10-index

3,472OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

2-year mean citedness

3.03OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

Self-citation rate

10.7%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Share of gold OA articles

18.53%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Volume

Articles per year

222LetPub · 2026-09-13

Articles per year (publisher)

8Publisher website · 2026-10-01

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.

Figures by source

Average review time (community reports)

about 6 monthsLetPub · 2026-09-13

Average acceptance (community reports)

28%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Submission to first decision

4 daysPublisher website · 2026-10-01

First decision after review

79 daysPublisher website · 2026-10-01

Submission to acceptance

188 daysPublisher website · 2026-10-01

Acceptance to publication

16 daysPublisher website · 2026-10-01

Peer review

Single anonymous peer reviewPublisher website

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.

A hybrid journal charges the APC only when the author chooses open access; publishing under the subscription model is usually free.

The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.

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.

Publisher

Elsevier

Country or region

NETHERLANDS

Language

English

Frequency

Monthly

Founded

1981

ISSN

0167-6911

Electronic ISSN

1872-7956

Official links

• Journal homepage ↗LetPub
• Submission system ↗Publisher website
• Special issues ↗Publisher website