The Ecological Solutions and Evidence Editorial Board boasts expertise from a wide range of ecological sectors; from research institutions and NGOs to public body organisations and consultancies. In this second part of our two-part series, we ask our Associate Editors – who work in or in the interface between research, practice and policy – why people should submit to the Journal and what kind of papers they would like to see submitted.

You can read part 1 here.

Why should people submit to the Journal?

Elizabeth Bach: ESE provides opportunities to find a home for that data that’s been sitting around for years that no one has time to analyse or interpret. It’s an opportunity to share a success or challenge in the field or in the scientific process. It can be a place to make a call for help, ask a question, or offer a solution.

Jim Vafidis: ESE can be the platform for practitioners to showcase their ideas and work, and help build a body of evidence, that related studies can build on and we can collectively make some progress. Being open access means the work will be accessible to a global audience, and will have more impact. I would especially encourage submissions from practitioners in industry and conservation who might not normally engage with this type of forum.

Vivian Nguyen: Folks working on relevant policy issues should be submitting to the Journal, including priority areas of practitioners. Practitioners who are conducting research and implementing monitoring programs should use the Journal as a platform to share information and ensure the academic scientific community is up-to-date with your knowledge and practices.

Errol Douwes: Practitioners, enthusiasts and students should all consider submitting to the Journal. It’s a great option for submitting locally relevant studies, or studies that are not suitable for high-end journals. The Journal also accepts data articles.

Andrea Thorpe: I think that everyone involved in applied ecology should be submitting to the Journal! That said, I would love to see more managers and other natural resource professionals outside of academia submitting contributions. Their perspectives on the success or applicability of results is something we need to hear more of.

What kind of papers would you like to see submitted?

Elizabeth: I would love to see papers driven by a love for nature and genuine questions that arise from that love. ESE is a place to share long-term experiences, as well as new observations and perspectives that may challenge long-held assumptions.

Jim: I would like to see studies in practical environmental monitoring and management that build on and enhance the traditional approaches. I would particularly encourage interdisciplinary studies or those that experiment with new methods. We are natural problem solvers and its exciting and useful for us all to see the development of ideas into testable studies. Conservation is finally seeing a renewal of approaches and starting to embrace the benefits of technology and this journal should be reflecting that.

Vivian: I am very interested in seeing papers submitted by practitioners (not only research practitioners but also policy practitioners). From my experience in the policy world at Natural Resources Canada, some important work and programs are developed and implemented but very little is documented simply because the policy world has quick turnarounds and very limited time and capacity. It would be wonderful to see papers from policy perspectives including research agendas and/or policy analyses on priority topics to help align science and policy.

Errol: Many postgrad students only publish some of their research: much of their data is left sitting in spreadsheet files on back-up hard drives. I’d like to see students submitting such datasets for publication as they have high value, especially for others doing similar research. It opens opportunities to build larger databases containing data from many local studies and these in turn open up possibilities of new studies and further analyses.  I’d also like to see practitioners and enthusiasts submit their notes and observations. All too often these are left unpublished and many such learnings and observations pass into obscurity.

Andrea: I would encourage people to think outside of the traditional definitions of an article, for example case studies that provide results that may be applied in other situations. I’d also like to see examples of what didn’t work – so often the literature focuses on just the positive results which can lead us to repeating past failures. Similarly, there’s a lot of data that have been collected that haven’t been analysed or published that could be of interest to others, and it would be great to see those published as Data Articles.

Find out more about our journal in our Editorial and consider submitting an article today.