Public Understanding of Science is a bimonthly peer-reviewed

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 academic journal

Academic journal

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

 that was established in 1992 and is published by SAGE Publications

SAGE Publications

SAGE is an independent academic publisher of books, journals, and electronic products in the humanities and social sciences and the scientific, technical, and medical fields. SAGE was founded in 1965 by George McCune and Sara Miller McCune. The company is headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California,...

. It covers topics in the popular perception of science

Public awareness of science

Public awareness of science , also public understanding of science , is a term relating to the attitudes, behaviours, opinions and activities that comprise the relations between the general public or lay society as a whole to scientific knowledge and organisation.It is a comparatively new approach...

, the role of science in society, philosophy of science

Philosophy of science

The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

, science education

Science education

Science education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises...

, and science in public policy

Public policy

Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...

. The editor-in-chief is Martin Bauer

Martin Bauer

Martin W. Bauer is a social psychologist, currently Head of the department of the Methodology Institute at the London School of Economics. He directs the MSc in Social and Public Communication at the Institute of Social Psychology...

 (London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

).

Abstracting and indexing

Public Understanding of Science is abstracted and indexed in Scopus

Scopus

Scopus, officially named SciVerse Scopus, is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It covers nearly 18,000 titles from over 5,000 international publishers, including coverage of 16,500 peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical,...

 and the Social Sciences Citation Index

Social Sciences Citation Index

Social Sciences Citation Index is an interdisciplinary citation index product of Thomson Reuters' Healthcare & Science division. It was developed by the Institute for Scientific Information from the Science Citation Index....

. According to the Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports is an annual publication by the Healthcare & Science division of Thomson Reuters. It has been integrated with the Web of Knowledge, by Thomson Reuters, and is accessed from the Web of Science to JCR Web. It provides information about academic journals in the sciences and...

, its 2010 impact factor

Impact factor

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...

is 1.838, ranking it 5 out of 67 journals in the category "Communication" and 2 out of 36 journals in the category "History & Philosophy of Science".