Biosystems Engineering

About Biosystems Engineering

Overview

Biosystems Engineering is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering engineering and the physical sciences as applied to biological systems. It is published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE), whose copyright appears on the journal's pages. The journal's official statement of purpose is concise and direct: Biosystems Engineering publishes advances in engineering science that strengthen understanding and management of biological systems, with biosystems of primary interest relating to land use and the environment, agriculture and amenities, bioproduction processes, and the food chain.

The journal sits at the intersection of engineering, agriculture, biology, and environmental science. It is one of the leading international venues for research on how engineering principles, measurement technologies, models, and machines can be designed, analysed, and optimised to work with living systems. Its readers include agricultural and biosystems engineers, mechanical and control engineers working on biological processes, food and bioprocess engineers, precision agriculture specialists, greenhouse and livestock-systems researchers, and environmental engineers.

Bibliographic identity is straightforward. The print ISSN is 1537-5110 and the online ISSN is 1537-5129, as listed on the journal's official Elsevier pages. The journal publishes twelve volumes per year, one volume per month. It is not a fully open-access journal; it operates a hybrid model in which subscription publishing is the default and authors may choose paid open-access options for individual articles. OpenAlex metadata classifies it as a hybrid journal rather than fully open access.

In journal-metric terms, Biosystems Engineering is consistently ranked in the first quartile (Q1) of its subject categories, including Agronomy and Crop Science, Food Science, Soil Science, Control and Systems Engineering, and Animal Science and Zoology, according to SCImago-based third-party trackers. Its h-index is reported in the 130–155 range depending on the database used (OpenAlex records 153; SCImago-based trackers report around 142). These third-party figures are presented here for context and should not be treated as official publisher statements.

Journal History

Biosystems Engineering adopted its current title in 2002, when it succeeded the Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research. Elsevier's own issue archive on ScienceDirect records the transition explicitly with the note "Formerly known as Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research." Coverage under the Biosystems Engineering title runs from 2002 to the present, and the predecessor title traces the journal's lineage further back into the twentieth century — third-party profiles commonly cite 1956 as the predecessor's starting point, though the publisher does not publish a formal founding history on the journal's public pages, so this profile treats that earlier date as reported rather than officially confirmed.

The 2002 renaming reflected a real broadening of the field. The older title anchored the journal to agricultural engineering in its traditional sense — machinery, structures, and processes for farming. The new title signalled the journal's expansion into biosystems thinking: biological systems as integrated wholes, studied with the tools of modern engineering science, including sensing, automation, modelling, information technology, and control. That shift has continued to this day, with topics such as precision agriculture, smart farming, remote sensing, machine vision, robotics, and artificial intelligence now central to the journal's published output.

Today the journal publishes research papers, reviews, and special issues, with active calls for papers on emerging themes — for example, recent special issues have covered computational fluid dynamics modelling of controlled-environment agriculture systems, numerical approaches for monitoring livestock health and welfare, and greenhouse technology. Each year brings roughly twelve volumes of content, making it a high-volume outlet in agricultural and biosystems engineering.

Aims and Scope

The official aims, as published by Elsevier, state that Biosystems Engineering "publishes research in engineering and the physical sciences that represent advances in understanding or modelling of the performance of biological systems for sustainable developments in land use and the environment, agriculture and amenity, bioproduction processes and the food chain." The subject matter reflects the wide range and interdisciplinary nature of research in engineering for biological systems.

Papers accepted by the journal may report:

• The results of experiments on machines, mechanisation systems, and biological processes
• Theoretical analyses and mathematical or computational models of biological and environmental systems
• Design innovations relating to machines and mechanisation systems
• New processes or processing methods, equipment, and buildings for agricultural and biological production
• Experimental equipment, laboratory and analytical techniques, and instrumentation

The scope spans the full chain from production to processing: soil dynamics and machinery traction, tillage and seeding equipment, harvesting and post-harvest technology, food quality and safety, controlled-environment and greenhouse systems, livestock housing and welfare engineering, bioenergy and biomass systems, water and irrigation engineering, and the rapidly growing domains of precision agriculture, sensors, automation, robotics, and data-driven decision support.

OpenAlex topic classifications of the journal's published works corroborate this breadth, with strong clusters in soil mechanics and vehicle dynamics, spectroscopy and chemometric analysis, agricultural engineering and mechanisation, smart agriculture and AI, greenhouse technology and climate control. Third-party topic analyses add environmental engineering, water content and soil science, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and hydrology among the journal's most represented research themes.

Editorial Leadership

As of the publisher's current listing, the journal's Editor-in-Chief is Dr. P. Demeyer, based in Merelbeke-Melle, Belgium. The journal is supported by two Senior Editors: Dr. N. Katsoulas (Volos, Greece), whose expertise covers greenhouse climate, greenhouse control, ventilation, cooling, and covering materials; and Dr. J. Taylor (Montpellier, France). The wider editorial team comprises 43 editors and editorial board members across 21 countries or regions, with the largest national representations from China, Greece, and the United Kingdom.

Associate Editors include Dr. A.J.A. Aarnink (Wageningen, Netherlands), Dr. F. Auat Cheein (Edinburgh, United Kingdom), Dr. Bartzanas and Dr. D. Ferentinos (Athens, Greece), Mr. J. Gowing (Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom), Prof. Dr. F. Jian (Winnipeg, Canada), Dr. R. Linker (Haifa, Israel), Dr. M. Teitel (Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel), Dr. S.G. Vougioukas (Davis, California, United States), and Dr. D. Wulfsohn (San Fernando, Chile). Emeritus Editors listed are Dr. W. Day (Hexham, United Kingdom), Dr. J. Koziel (Ames, Iowa, United States), and Dr. C.S. Parkin (Cranfield, United Kingdom).

The full Editorial Board brings in recognised specialists from institutions including Wageningen University, KU Leuven, Ghent University, Purdue University, UC Davis, Iowa State University, China Agricultural University, Seoul National University, Northwest A&F University, the University of Bologna, Aarhus University, Stellenbosch University, and the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy. Editorial roles change over time, so readers should consult the publisher's current editorial board page for the latest listing.

Key Facts

Publication Details: ISSN, Frequency, Publisher

Biosystems Engineering carries print ISSN 1537-5110 and online ISSN 1537-5129. It is published monthly by Elsevier Ltd, with twelve numbered volumes each calendar year (for example, volumes 261–267 covered January through July 2026). The copyright line on the journal's ScienceDirect pages reads "© IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd," identifying the Institution of Agricultural Engineers as the copyright holder and Elsevier as the publishing partner. The journal's official web presence is hosted on ScienceDirect under the path /journal/biosystems-engineering, where current issues, the full issue archive, calls for papers, and special issues are maintained.

Articles appear as research papers and reviews, with article numbering (e.g., article 104465) used in recent volumes. Manuscripts are submitted through Elsevier's online editorial system, and the journal actively commissions special issues and article collections on emerging topics, guest-edited by specialists in the field.

Open Access and Article Processing Charges

Biosystems Engineering is a hybrid journal: the default publication route is subscription-based, and authors can opt to make individual articles open access by paying an article processing charge (APC). OpenAlex metadata confirms the journal is not marked as fully open access, while noting that hybrid options exist.

The publisher does not publish a single fixed APC figure on the journal's main public page. OpenAlex, drawing on DOAJ-sourced data, reports list prices of approximately 3,350 USD, 3,130 EUR, 2,680 GBP, and 415,500 JPY. These are list prices reported by a third-party database, not a fee quotation: actual charges can vary with taxes, institutional agreements, waivers, and the open-access licence chosen. Authors should confirm the current APC, available waivers, and licence options (typically CC BY or CC BY-NC-ND) with the publisher at the time of submission, and should check funder mandates for open-access compliance.

Some articles in the journal are published open access without charge to the author through institutional transformative agreements, and accepted manuscripts may also be shared under green open-access embargo terms — authors should verify the current embargo and self-archiving policy on the publisher's site.

Submission Guidance

Authors considering Biosystems Engineering should weigh the following, drawn from the journal's official pages and standard Elsevier practice:

• Selectivity: The journal reports a 10% acceptance rate — it is highly selective. Manuscripts must present a clear advance in engineering science applied to biological systems, not merely an application of an established method.
• Scope fit: Confirm the work addresses engineering advances for biological systems — land use and environment, agriculture and amenity, bioproduction processes, or the food chain. Off-scope manuscripts are desk-rejected.
• Speed: The journal reports a median of 11 days from submission to first decision, 71 days to a decision after review, and 234 days from submission to acceptance. These are publisher-reported medians and individual experiences vary.
• Article types: Research papers and reviews are the standard formats; the journal also publishes special issues and invited collections. Check the current guide for authors for word limits, figure requirements, and reference style.
• Declarations: Elsevier requires competing-interest declarations, author-contribution statements, and — where relevant — data availability statements. Experimental work involving animals must meet ethical standards; field studies should describe locations and conditions reproducibly.
• Language: Manuscripts are published in English. Authors whose first language is not English should consider professional language editing before submission.
• Preprints: Elsevier generally permits preprints; authors should check the current sharing policy for this title before posting.

Indexing and Visibility

Biosystems Engineering is indexed in the major scholarly databases. Third-party trackers list it in the Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science) and Scopus, with Scopus coverage recorded from 2002 under the current title. It is classified in Journal Citation Reports subject categories including Agricultural Engineering and Agriculture, Multidisciplinary, where it holds Q1 positions according to third-party ranking sites. OpenAlex records approximately 4,900 works and over 180,000 citations attributed to the journal, with coverage from the late 1990s through the present (the early years reflecting the predecessor title's content carried into the database).

Readers should treat third-party metric aggregations (impact factors, CiteScores, SJR values) as indicative rather than official: the publisher does not publish an official impact factor on the journal's public pages, and different databases compute metrics over different citation windows. The one metric the publisher does publish directly is the 10% acceptance rate shown on the journal's Elsevier page.

Notable Research Themes

Rather than a fixed canon, the journal's most influential contributions track the evolution of the field itself. Highly cited work in the journal includes a major review of twenty-five years of remote sensing in precision agriculture, widely cited overviews of microwave processing and dielectric properties of agri-food materials, and early work on low-cost agricultural remote sensing using autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles — reflecting the journal's long-standing role in bringing sensing, imaging, and automation into agriculture.

Current strengths visible in recent volumes include deep-learning and computer-vision applications (from livestock behaviour monitoring to plant phenotyping), greenhouse climate and energy modelling, computational fluid dynamics for controlled-environment agriculture, livestock welfare and emissions modelling, soil–machine interaction, and spectroscopy coupled with chemometrics for food and material quality. Special issues continue to push into computational modelling of livestock systems and controlled-environment agriculture.

Who Should Publish Here

Biosystems Engineering is best suited to authors whose work advances engineering science rather than merely applying an off-the-shelf technique. Strong submissions typically combine rigorous experimentation or modelling with a clear biological or environmental system as the object of study — a greenhouse climate, a soil–tyre interface, a livestock building, a food-processing line, a sensor network over a field. The journal's 10% acceptance rate means incremental or purely descriptive work struggles; manuscripts that benchmark a new algorithm on an agricultural dataset without engineering insight, or that report routine equipment tests, are poor fits.

Researchers in agricultural and biological engineering departments, precision-agriculture groups, food-engineering laboratories, and environmental-systems teams will find the most natural audience here. Because the journal is indexed in the major citation databases and holds Q1 positions in several of its categories, a publication here carries weight in tenure, promotion, and funding evaluations in agricultural and biosystems engineering disciplines. Authors should, however, weigh the long tail of the timeline — a publisher-reported median of 234 days from submission to acceptance — against faster, less selective outlets when a rapid result matters more than prestige.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ISSN of Biosystems Engineering?
The print ISSN is 1537-5110 and the online ISSN is 1537-5129, as listed on the journal's official Elsevier pages.

Who publishes Biosystems Engineering?
Elsevier Ltd publishes the journal; copyright is held by IAgrE, the Institution of Agricultural Engineers.

When was Biosystems Engineering founded?
The journal adopted its current title in 2002, succeeding the Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research. The publisher does not publish a formal founding history on its public pages.

Who is the Editor-in-Chief?
Dr. P. Demeyer (Merelbeke-Melle, Belgium), supported by Senior Editors Dr. N. Katsoulas and Dr. J. Taylor. Editorial appointments change over time; check the publisher's current editorial board page for the latest listing.

Is Biosystems Engineering open access?
It is a hybrid journal — subscription-based by default, with paid open-access options for individual articles. It is not a fully open-access journal.

What is the acceptance rate?
The journal's official Elsevier page reports a 10% acceptance rate, making it a selective venue.

What is the journal's impact factor?
The publisher does not publish an official impact factor on the journal's public pages. Third-party trackers report varying figures; these should be treated as unofficial estimates.

How often is the journal published?
Monthly — twelve volumes per year.

What is the typical review timeline?
The publisher reports medians of 11 days to first decision, 71 days to a decision after review, and 234 days from submission to acceptance. Individual experiences vary.

What topics does the journal cover?
Engineering and physical-science advances for biological systems: agricultural machinery and mechanisation, soil dynamics, precision agriculture and smart farming, sensors and automation, greenhouse and livestock systems, food and bioprocess engineering, post-harvest technology, irrigation and water engineering, bioenergy, and modelling of environmental and biological systems.

This depth profile was researched from the journal's official Elsevier pages and its ScienceDirect issue archive in October 2026; facts drawn from third-party trackers are labelled as such, and figures the publisher does not publish are marked "not officially published" rather than estimated.