Applied Spectroscopy Practica

About Applied Spectroscopy Practica

Applied Spectroscopy Practica — Journal Profile

Applied Spectroscopy Practica (ISSN 2755-1857) is a young, online-only, open-access, peer-reviewed journal published quarterly by SAGE Publishing as one of the two official publications of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy (SAS). Its first issue appeared in 2023 — volume 1, issue 1 is dated September 2023 in SAGE's journal records — and its article DOIs run under the SAGE prefix in the form 10.1177/27551857… . The journal's own masthead describes it, in paraphrase, as an open-access journal published quarterly by SAGE, one of two official publications of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, whose management address is given in Albany, New York. Its shorter name in everyday use is its initials, APP — not to be confused with its older sister journal, and the distinction matters enough that this profile returns to it explicitly below.

The sister relationship defines the journal. Applied Spectroscopy (the flagship, published monthly by SAGE for SAS since 2016, with roots in the society's bulletin of 1946) concentrates on the fundamentals and applications of photon-based spectroscopy across the whole field. Applied Spectroscopy Practica was created as the practice-facing companion: a journal for how spectroscopy is actually done well in laboratories, in the field, in factories, in hospitals, in museums and at crime scenes — improvements to instruments and methods, refinements in data processing, automation and process measurement, and applications of existing methods to new and interesting systems, together with reviews of applications of existing and new analytical approaches. The founding editor-in-chief named in the society's reporting of the launch preparations was Dr Richard Crocombe, a prominent figure in portable spectroscopy, working with managing editor Kristin MacDonald; the journal's preparation was under way through 2022, with the first issue scheduled for the end of the first quarter of 2023 and publication following that year. The current editor-in-chief is Mary Kate Donais of Saint Anselm College — her role is stated in the journal's own published disclosure notes, including a 2026 corrigendum recording that, as editor-in-chief, she took no part in the review or decision for her own co-authored submission — and she was herself an author in the very first issue, on handheld laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for field archaeology.

Quick Facts

Why This Journal Exists: The Practice Gap in Spectroscopy Publishing

Spectroscopists have long recognised a structural gap in their literature. The work that makes measurements succeed in the real world — a better sampling accessory, a hard-won calibration strategy, a chemometric workflow that survives messy field data, a portable instrument validated outside the laboratory, an honest account of interferences and how they were defeated — is essential knowledge that historically struggled to find a home. Fundamental journals want new principles; applications journals often want new analytes in new matrices at record detection limits; and the practical, transferable craft knowledge in between could end up shared only at conferences, in vendor notes, or not at all. SAS and SAGE created Applied Spectroscopy Practica to close exactly that gap, and its stated aims, as carried in its masthead, describe the territory precisely in paraphrase: modifications and improvements of instrumentation and methodologies; refinements in data processing; automation and process measurements; applications of existing methodologies to novel systems; and reviews related to applications of existing and new analytical approaches — including manuscripts describing applications in which the hardware or software of instruments has been modified.

That last clause is a signature. A journal that explicitly welcomes papers about modifying instrument hardware and software is telling builders, tinkerers and method developers — the people who adapt a spectrometer with a 3D-printed part, a custom sampling interface or a new control script — that their work is publishable scholarship here. The published record shows the invitation being taken up literally: the journal's early volumes include a portable, spectroscope-inspired, 3D-printed smartphone spectrophotometer built and tested by its authors, a paper significant enough in the journal's young life that a 2026 corrigendum carefully corrects figure references inside it. A low-cost, printable, phone-based instrument is, in miniature, the journal's whole philosophy: spectroscopy made more usable, more portable and more widely available, reported rigorously enough for others to reproduce.

Scope: Techniques and Application Fields

The masthead's aims-and-scope summary lists the technique territory broadly, and it is worth reproducing as a paraphrased inventory because it defines what “spectroscopy” means for this journal: ultraviolet-visible absorption; fluorescence and phosphorescence; mid-infrared and near-infrared; Raman; terahertz and microwave spectroscopy; atomic absorption and atomic emission; laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS); inductively coupled plasma optical emission and mass spectrometry (ICP-OES and ICP-MS); thermal lensing; X-ray fluorescence (XRF); mass spectrometry; nuclear magnetic resonance; and portable measurements, together with hyperspectral imaging and hyphenated and interdisciplinary techniques. Spectral-data work is equally in scope: the journal publishes articles on spectral processing methodologies such as two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy, detection and elimination of artefacts, baseline correction, deconvolution, curve fitting, algorithms for qualitative and quantitative analysis, and chemometric methods applied to spectra.

The published archive, sampled from the journal's 2025–2026 Crossref-visible output, shows that scope operating across an unusually wide spread of real-world problems:

• Forensic and security analysis — automatic detection of low concentrations of fentanyl in acetaminophen using a commercial, non-radioactive ionisation ion-mobility spectrometer; spectral barcoding for detecting fentanyl and its analogues by Raman spectroscopy; and detection of lead(II) chromate adulteration in cinnamon.
• Archaeology, heritage and field science — handheld LIBS for field archaeology, characterising Roman wall mortars and Etruscan ceramics; non-destructive portable XRF applied to long-distance obsidian exchange in prehistoric Calabria; elemental analysis of porcine ribs comparing maceration methods; and an archaeometric investigation conducted with portable instruments outside the laboratory.
• Bioprocess and pharmaceutical monitoring — ultrafiltration–diafiltration inline monitoring for protein and excipient concentration, comparing mid-infrared, Raman and variable-pathlength ultraviolet spectroscopy head to head — exactly the comparative, practice-oriented study design the journal exists for.
• Agriculture and food — near-infrared interaction spectroscopy under daylight conditions to assess total soluble solids in strawberries still on the plant; fluorescence lifetime imaging tracking a crop-protection agent on leaf surfaces; and quantitative compositional analysis of eggshell-membrane extracts by 1064 nm Raman spectroscopy.
• Environmental and industrial measurement — infrared quantification of siloxanes in synthetic biogas at parts-per-billion levels in the presence of spectral interferents; molybdenum–gold nanoclusters as fluorescence turn-off–on sensors for guanosine and magnesium ions; and round-robin analysis of uranium isotopics on cotton swipes by microextraction sampling versus conventional bulk analysis.
• Methods, calibration and data quality — wavelength calibration of linear-array spectrometers using cubic Hermite spline interpolation; gaining quantitative fidelity from Raman spectra under large and varying fluorescence; determination of isophthalic-acid comonomer content in PET by Raman spectroscopy; all-optical imaging thermometry using diamond particles containing nitrogen-vacancy centres; and assessment of low-level plutonium isotope-ratio measurement by multicollector ICP-MS/MS with a pre-mass filter.

Notice the pattern across those examples. Almost every one either takes spectroscopy somewhere it is hard to do — a field site, a production line, a daylight orchard, a forensic bench facing trace opioids — or makes a measurement more quantitative, more calibrated or more reproducible than it was before. That is the editorial centre of gravity, and authors whose work matches it will recognise their fit immediately; authors with a purely theoretical spectroscopy paper, with no measurement practice in it, will generally find the flagship sister journal the better address.

Article Types, Special Collections and Community Features

The journal publishes original practical research articles, reviews of applied approaches, and case-report-style contributions — its early volumes explicitly label case reports — alongside editorials, corrigenda and errata handled through SAGE's standard corrections process, as the journal's own 2026 correction notices show. SAGE's journal pages also document themed special collections, the mechanism by which a young journal builds communities around hot practical topics: announced calls have included a collection on portable spectroscopy and miniature spectral sensors, and a collection on advancements in applied inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, each with a stated submission deadline. Portable spectroscopy is a fitting flagship theme — the founding editor-in-chief's own field, the subject of the journal's first-issue archaeology paper, and the thread connecting smartphone spectrophotometers, handheld LIBS and field XRF across the archive.

Two community features deserve note. The Peter Griffiths Award, named for the distinguished infrared spectroscopist, recognises the best paper published annually in Applied Spectroscopy Practica; Spectroscopy Media reports its inaugural recipients as Sara Fraser-Miller and co-authors, honoured at SciX 2026 — SciX being the major conference of the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies, at which SAS is a central presence — with the journal accepting submissions toward the third award in 2026. An annual best-paper award from a society journal is a meaningful signal for a three-year-old title: it ties the journal to the society's conference community and gives practical papers a recognition route that fundamental journals' awards rarely offer. Second, the journal benefits from the SAS ecosystem itself — the society's newsletter carried the journal's gestation in public, its members receive the discounted APC tier described below, and the sister relationship with Applied Spectroscopy lets SAGE cross-promote content, including the flagship's special issues, to a combined readership.

Peer Review, Open Access and Fees in Detail

SAGE's submission guidelines for the journal record single anonymised peer review — reviewers know the authors' identities; authors do not know the reviewers' — and state that the journal is online only and offers no print copies. The journal is a gold open-access title: SAGE's guidelines state that all accepted articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication, are published under a Creative Commons licence, and are hosted online in perpetuity. Creative Commons licensing visible on published articles includes CC BY-NC 4.0 on society-journal content; authors should check the licence options presented at acceptance for their own article, since SAGE open-access arrangements and funder requirements can interact.

On cost, the guidelines are specific and authors should use them rather than any secondary summary: there is no charge for submitting a manuscript; an article processing charge is payable only if the manuscript is accepted after peer review, before publication; an introductory APC of $900, discounted from a full rate of $1,800, applied during 2024; and after 2024 the charge is $900 for Society for Applied Spectroscopy members and $1,800 for non-members, subject to taxes where applicable. SAGE also notes that authors may be eligible for discounts through institutional open-access agreements, determined by the corresponding author's affiliation at acceptance, and for waivers under initiatives widening access for the international academic community. Because fee schedules change, the figure to budget against is the one on the live SAGE guidelines page at the moment of submission — but the structure is stable and worth planning around: society membership halves the charge, so a submitting author who expects to publish here, or in the sister journal, should price SAS membership into the decision.

Indexing, Metrics and an Honest Standing Assessment

This journal began publishing in September 2023, and its standing must be assessed as what it is: a very young society journal with a strong parentage. Its articles are registered with Crossref under SAGE's 10.1177 prefix, are hosted on the SAGE Journals platform with the platform's most-read, most-cited and Altmetric surfacing, and are discoverable through general scholarly search. No Journal Impact Factor or CiteScore for Applied Spectroscopy Practica itself was verified from an official source consulted for this profile, and none is claimed here. The warning that matters most for this title is a confusion risk: its sister journal Applied Spectroscopy is a long-established, indexed, metric-bearing monthly whose impact factor, h-index and rankings are extensively reported online — and those numbers belong to the flagship alone. They must never be attributed to Practica, whose ISSN, launch date and archive are entirely separate. Any third-party page that quotes an impact factor for “Applied Spectroscopy” alongside Practica's ISSN 2755-1857 has mixed the two records, and evaluators should correct it on sight.

What can fairly be said in the journal's favour is structural rather than metric: a major commercial-society publisher (SAGE) operating the title as an official publication of the field's own society (SAS); an editorial team drawn from the practising community, including an editor-in-chief whose own portable-spectroscopy work appeared in the first issue; a clear, unfilled editorial niche; quarterly regularity maintained from volume 1 in 2023 through the 2026 volumes visible in its Crossref record; themed collections recruiting in growth areas such as portable sensors and ICP-MS practice; and an annual named award embedding it in the SciX conference community. For an author whose goal is to reach practising spectroscopists who will actually use a method, that combination can matter more than a metric the journal is too young to hold. For an author whose institution requires a specific indexed venue for a specific evaluation, the correct action is to check the current index lists directly before submitting, to any young journal, this one included.

Who Should Submit

Submit here if you have improved how a spectroscopic measurement is made, processed or deployed; validated a portable or field instrument against laboratory reference methods; automated or taken a measurement inline into a process; applied a known technique to a novel system and reported it with enough practical detail — sampling, interferences, calibration, failure modes — for the next laboratory to succeed; or synthesised the applied literature on a technique in a review that teaches practice. Expect single anonymised review by people who do this work, an APC at acceptance with a meaningful society-member discount, immediate open-access publication online, and an audience of practitioners across forensic, environmental, agricultural, pharmaceutical, heritage and industrial spectroscopy. Consider the flagship Applied Spectroscopy instead for fundamental spectroscopic science; consider a domain journal instead if your contribution is primarily to the application field — a new archaeological finding, say — rather than to the spectroscopic practice used to reach it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Applied Spectroscopy Practica the same journal as Applied Spectroscopy? No. They are sister publications of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, both published by SAGE, but they are different journals: Applied Spectroscopy is the long-established monthly flagship (ISSN 0003-7028 in print), while Applied Spectroscopy Practica is the open-access quarterly launched in 2023 under ISSN 2755-1857, focused on practice. Their metrics and archives are separate.

When did the journal start, and how often does it appear? Volume 1, issue 1 is dated September 2023. The masthead states quarterly publication, and its issue record runs continuously from 2023 into 2026.

What does it cost to publish? Nothing to submit. On acceptance, SAGE's guidelines state an APC of $900 for Society for Applied Spectroscopy members and $1,800 for non-members after the 2024 introductory period, with possible institutional-agreement discounts and waivers; confirm the live figure on SAGE's guidelines page before submitting.

Is the journal open access? Yes — gold open access. Accepted articles are freely available online immediately on publication under a Creative Commons licence and hosted in perpetuity, according to SAGE's guidelines; the journal is online only.

Who edits it? The founding editor-in-chief, per the society's launch reporting, was Dr Richard Crocombe. The current editor-in-chief is Mary Kate Donais of Saint Anselm College, as stated in the journal's own published disclosure statements.

Does it have an impact factor? No impact factor or CiteScore for this title was verified from an official source for this profile, and the journal is young. Figures quoted online for Applied Spectroscopy belong to the sister flagship and must not be transferred to this journal.

What is the Peter Griffiths Award? An annual award, reported by Spectroscopy Media, for the best paper published in the journal, named for infrared spectroscopist Peter Griffiths; its inaugural recipients were Sara Fraser-Miller and co-authors, honoured at SciX 2026.

Sources used for this profile are listed in the accompanying sources file. Bibliographic and fee facts are taken from the journal's masthead and SAGE's official journal and submission-guideline pages; launch history from the society's own newsletter; editorship from the journal's published disclosure statements; and the award from spectroscopy trade-press reporting, attributed as such.