Publication Guide
IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is the dominant publisher in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics - by IEEE's own count, roughly a third of the world's technical literature in these fields. The portfolio spans about 200 journals, transactions, and magazines, plus the proceedings of more than 2,000 sponsored conferences every year, all hosted on the IEEE Xplore digital library alongside active IEEE standards.
IEEE was formed in 1963 by merging the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (founded 1884) and the Institute of Radio Engineers (founded 1912). It is a non-profit professional society: publishing surpluses fund technical activities, standards development, and member programs rather than shareholders. This guide covers how the portfolio is organized, open access options and 2026 APCs, the peer review workflow, and how to submit.
Which IEEE venue fits your paper?
IEEE offers several distinct publication routes with different selectivity, speed, and cost profiles. Use the table below to choose.
| You're most likely to... | Choose this route |
|---|---|
| Want an archival, field-leading venue for a mature research contribution | IEEE Transactions (e.g., TPAMI, T-SP, T-IP, TII) - the flagship subject-specialty journals; rigorous review, high selectivity, subscription-based with a hybrid OA option. |
| Need fast, multidisciplinary Gold OA publication | IEEE Access - IEEE's megajournal; binary accept/reject review with first decisions typically in 4-6 weeks, APC ~$2,160. |
| Have an OA mandate but want a specialty venue | IEEE Open Journal of ... series and topical OA titles - fully-OA companions to many societies' transactions, APC ~$2,160 for most titles. |
| Want to publish work-in-progress or reach a community quickly | IEEE conferences - 2,000+ per year; in many CS/EE subfields (e.g., computer vision, communications), top conferences are prestige venues in their own right. |
| Are writing a survey or tutorial for a broad engineering audience | Proceedings of the IEEE or an IEEE magazine (e.g., IEEE Communications Magazine) - invited and submitted review/tutorial content. |
What IEEE actually publishes
- Transactions and journals (~200 titles) - subject-specialty archival journals run by IEEE's 40+ technical societies, including IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, and IEEE Internet of Things Journal.
- IEEE Access - the multidisciplinary Gold OA megajournal, launched in 2013; among the largest journals in engineering by annual article count and still indexed in Scopus and Web of Science (2025 JIF ~4.2).
- Magazines - practitioner-oriented titles such as IEEE Communications Magazine and IEEE Spectrum (the member magazine).
- Conference proceedings - papers from 2,000+ IEEE-sponsored conferences per year, published on IEEE Xplore.
- Standards - active IEEE standards (e.g., 802 networking family) are also hosted on Xplore.
Open access at IEEE
IEEE supports three OA routes:
- Gold OA (fully-OA journals) - IEEE Access plus a growing family of topical OA journals and the IEEE Open Journal of ... series launched by individual societies. Licenses are CC BY or CC BY-NC-ND at the author's choice.
- Hybrid OA - most IEEE transactions, journals, and magazines offer a paid OA option for individual articles.
- Green OA (self-archiving) - IEEE permits authors to post the accepted version of their article on their personal site, employer's site, or funder-designated repository.
- Read & Publish agreements - IEEE has transformative/Read & Publish agreements with institutions and consortia worldwide that cover or discount APCs for corresponding authors; check the ESAC registry or your library.
APCs - actual numbers
Figures below are from IEEE's 2026 APC list (USD, before tax). IEEE revises prices annually - always confirm on the journal's page or open.ieee.org before submitting.
| Title tier | APC (2026) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| IEEE Access | ~$2,160 | No page limits; binary rapid review |
| Fully-OA topical journals | ~$2,160 | Some exceptions apply for certain titles |
| Hybrid journals (OA option) | ~$2,800 | Overlength and color-page charges may apply on some titles |
| Magazines (OA option) | ~$2,995 | Some exceptions apply |
IEEE society/council members receive a 20% APC discount; IEEE members without a society affiliation receive 5%. Waivers and reductions are available on request for authors facing financial hardship, and many institutions have Read & Publish deals that cover the APC entirely. Publishing in a subscription IEEE transactions without choosing OA remains free.
Peer review process
- Default model: single-anonymized peer review on most transactions and journals; some titles use double-anonymized review.
- IEEE Access model: binary accept/reject decisions (no major-revision cycles) with a minimum of two reviewers - typical first decision in 4-6 weeks.
- Transactions turnaround: typically 3-6 months to first decision, varying widely by title and field.
- Conferences: fixed submission deadlines with program-committee review; many top IEEE conferences are double-anonymized.
How to submit
- Pick the venue. Browse IEEE Xplore or the IEEE Publication Recommender to match your manuscript's scope.
- Read the author guidelines. Each title has specific instructions at the IEEE Author Center (ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org).
- Prepare your manuscript. Use the IEEE two-column template (LaTeX IEEEtran class or Word) - available on SciSpace - and IEEE numbered citation style with square brackets [1].
- Submit via the IEEE Author Portal or ScholarOne Manuscripts. IEEE is progressively migrating titles from ScholarOne to its own Author Portal; the journal's page tells you which system to use.
- After acceptance, choose OA or subscription publication, sign the copyright or CC license form, and complete any page/overlength charges.
Ethics and integrity
IEEE is a member of COPE and STM and applies its own Publication Services and Products Board (PSPB) operations manual to misconduct, plagiarism, and authorship disputes. Retractions and corrections follow documented procedures on IEEE Xplore, and IEEE screens submissions with plagiarism-detection tools. Prohibited-author-list and conference-quality controls have tightened following past paper-mill incidents in conference proceedings.
