According to a recent report released by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC) at the 2026 Pujiang Innovation Forum, the international journal Grey Systems Theory and Application has been selected for the 2025 List of World-Class Academic Journals. The journal is edited by Prof. Sifeng Liu, the founding director of the Institute of Grey Systems at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA).

Prof. Liu, NUAA’s first Distinguished Professor, founded the Institute of Grey Systems in 2000. In 2010, he applied to the UK-based Emerald Publishing Group to launch the journal. Following a rigorous review, Emerald fully funded the project, and Prof. Liu was appointed as the Founding Editor-in-Chief.

Launched as a quarterly in 2011, the journal has rapidly ascended the international academic rankings. It entered ESCI in 2017 and achieved its first SCI Impact Factor of 1.9 (JCR Q2) in 2019. By 2022, it advanced to JCR Q1. Its 2026 Impact Factor has reached 4.6, ranking 10th out of 137 journals in the "Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications" category and standing as the world's top journal in the field of grey systems. It is also indexed by EI-Compendex and Scopus.

The ISTIC evaluation employed a comprehensive "Four-Power" framework (focusing on academic organization, leadership, influence, and social impact) alongside AI technologies to assess global journals, highlighting those that break language barriers and lead academic development. This recognition underscores NUAA's leading international influence in grey system research.