Editorial : on academic publishing for early career researchers

Abstract

First, we focus on speed. Early career researchers needing to secure funding for postdocs, working on securing tenure, or otherwise stuck in the precarity of early academic careers, are particularly exposed when journals take many months to review and publish articles. While peer review inevitably takes time, and we at the EJLS experience the same limited availability of peer reviewers that appears to be endemic in academia as a whole, we aim to conduct desk reviews quickly, usually within a week, and we have been lucky enough to be able to retain a dedicated pool of reviewers that share our goal of conducting peer reviews within weeks rather than months. Second, we focus on feedback. Publishing your first (or second or third) academic article can be a daunting endeavour since academic articles are a different genre than term papers or thesis chapters, and academia is ripe with horror stories about rude and cruel rejections with little explanation or feedback. At the EJLS we therefore aim to foster a kinder environment. Although rejections remain an everyday occurrence (some seventy percent of the articles we receive are eventually rejected), we aim to always provide feedback and guidance for authors wishing to improve their work. Third, we are wholly open access, meaning that not only are our articles always freely available to readers, we also do not charge publication or open access fees. These can be prohibitively expensive for emerging scholars whose affiliated institutions do not provide funds for such fees, or who are between affiliations - transferring from PhD to post-doc, between post-docs or from post-doc to assistant professorships. This open access policy would not be possible without the institutional support we receive from the European University Institute and the time volunteered by the members of our editorial board.