Some leading general journals like Acta, Advances, Annals, Duke, Inventiones, JAMS, JEMS, Math. I used the MathSciNet to determine whether papers are in Combinatorics (search for MSC Primary = 05) How should we understand this? It’s biased, but really any other ranking would work just as well. Note: I used this link for a quick guide to top journals. And none of that work was deemed worthy by this venerable journal? Really? In the past 50 years Paris has been a major research center in my area, one of the best places to do Enumerative, Asymptotics and Algebraic Combinatorics. Because it’s in Combinatorics, you see… But whatever, let’s get back to ZERO. I am guessing the editor (very far from my area) assumed that the open problem that I resolved in that paper could not possibly be “major” enough. I am sorry that your paper arrived during that period. Because of this I prefer to reject you paper right now. Unfortunately, the journal has such a severe backlog that we decided at the last meeting of the editorial board not to take any new submissions for the next few months, except possibly for the solution of a major open problem. I had a very limited interaction with the journal when I submitted my paper which was rejected immediately. Yes, since 1959 they published the grand total of 528 papers. So, what happened in 2007? Papers in Combinatorics suddenly lost broad interest? Quanta Magazine must be really confused by this all… Papers on other topics are welcome if they are of broad interest. Read the following sentence on their front page: Oh, my… I wrote in this blog post that at least the journal is honest about Combinatorics being low priority. None among the last 1172 papers (since 2007).

The journal also had a mediocre record in Combinatorics until 2006 (12 papers out of 2661). This makes me wonder about the CJM editorial policy, as in can any editor accept any paper they wish or the decision has to made by a majority of editors? Or, perhaps, each paper is accepted only by a unanimous vote? And how many Combinatorics papers were provisionally accepted only to be rejected by such a vote of the editorial board? Most likely, we will never know the answers… Perhaps, Combinatorics is not “pure” enough or simply lacks “papers of highest quality”.Ĭuriously, Jacob Fox is one of the seven “Associate Editors”. Yes, in Cambridge, MA which has the most active combinatorics seminar that I know (and used to co-organize twice a week). Out of the 93 papers to date, it has published precisely Zero papers in Combinatorics.

Publish papers of the highest quality, spanning the range of mathematics with an emphasis on pure mathematics. This is a relative newcomer, established just ten years ago in 2013. You could’ve fooled me… Maybe start by admitting you have a problem. I spoke to an editor: the AJM does not have any bias against combinatorics. Really? Some 10 years ago while writing this blog post I emailed the AJM Editor Christopher Sogge asking if the journal has a policy or an internal bias against the area. And yet not a single Combinatorics paper was deemed good enough. Since 2009 it published the total of 696 papers. The journal keeps publishing in other areas, obviously. The journal had a barely mediocre record of publishing in Combinatorics until 2008 (10 papers out of 6544, less than one per 12 years of existence, mostly in the years just before 2008). The list below is in alphabetical order and includes only general math journals. What I thought I would do is highlight a few journals which are particularly hostile to Combinatorics. This is an old fight best not rehashed again. Some people and institutions continue insisting that Combinatorics is mostly a trivial nonsense (or at least large parts of it). It’s a joy to see it represented at (most) top universities and recognized with major awards. I am happy to see it accepted by the broad mathematical community. As you all know, my field is Combinatorics.

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