Journal of Applied Ecology has been a mission oriented journal since we launched in 1964. Sixty years on, we’re celebrating the impact we’ve had and looking to the future.

In our recently published Editorial, we explore what it means to be a journal with real-world impact. Throughout our sixty years, we have been cited 2880 times in online policy documents, the highest of any British Ecological Society (BES) journal.  We also investigate the myriad of ways that our authors achieve impact in the real world via an online survey, and ask how we, as a journal, can help our community to achieve greater impact for their work.

This has led to us launching, from 2025, optional plain language summaries, and AER Live talks for authors to connect directly to the BES’s practitioner community. All of this is alongside our existing support for press releases, social media, and blogs to expand the reach for every author who publishes with us.

Virtual Issue

Alongside the Editorial, we’ve launched a Virtual Issue showcasing a selection of articles published in the study window of 2017-2021, that achieved real-world impact. All articles were selected based on either the authors’ survey responses or because they have a high number of citations in online policy documents.

The articles in the Virtual Issue are free to read and cover a range of topics such as fire management in the Brazilian savanna, the interpretation of coral reef monitoring data, and the role of roads and forest edges in virus dispersion!

Pushing boundaries

Journal of Applied Ecology has consistently pushed the boundaries of what it means for a journal to serve its community. First launched in 2015, our Associate Editor Mentoring Scheme has seen over 50 Early Career Researchers develop their knowledge of the peer review process through first-hand experience of handling manuscripts submitted to the journal. The scheme, which runs annually, sees the journal’s Senior Editors act as a mentor throughout a two-year position – helping mentees to build confidence in assessing manuscripts. To reduce global inequality and further international collaboration, we limited this scheme to mentees from the Global South in 2021. This has helped to diversify the editorial team and increase global inclusion.

In 2015, we introduced ‘statements of inclusion’ at manuscript submission stage to raise awareness of and reduce helicopter science. Journal of Applied Ecology has frequently been a leader amongst the BES portfolio, treading new ground to increase equality in the ecological community – and our newest initiative is no different.

ECR Reviewer Prize

Recognising the key, but often underappreciated, role that Early Career Researchers play in peer review led to this year’s trial of an ECR Reviewer Prize. Peer review is fundamental to the research process, helping to ensure rigour, gauge originality, and improve the quality of the final publication. Given the importance of peer review, and the many competing priorities of an ECR, we wanted to provide a way that peer review could give back to those that take part in it. 

As a result, our ECR Reviewer Prize awards £500 to two randomly-selected applicants who have completed two or more reviews with Journal of Applied Ecology in the last year. The first two winners of the ECR Reviewer Prize will be using their prize to fund summer fieldwork, conference travel, and to buy textbooks to help with their studies. You can read more about this prize, and register your interest in acting as a reviewer for us by visiting this page.

Author stories

Following the launch of our online author survey in November 2023, we spoke to two authors about their experience conducting their research and disseminating the results.

David Eldridge’s research and corresponding article, ‘Livestock activity increases exotic plant richness, but wildlife increases native richness, with stronger effects under low productivity’, is discussed in this blog post. The importance of a dedicated team (consisting of scientists, managers and government agencies) is suggested to have been essential in enabling this article to trigger impact.

In comparison, Edward Straw’s blog post discusses reactions, predominantly through social media, to the 2021 article ‘Roundup causes high levels of mortality following contact exposure in bumble bees’. Following the article’s publication, over half a million X users read the thread on X, formerly Twitter, to very mixed reactions.

These two accounts showcase the varied way impact and reach beyond academic circles can be achieved, enforcing the Editorial’s findings that ‘impact is multi-faceted and non-linear’.

We’d like to hear from you!

Journals like Journal of Applied Ecology are key to tackling issues of climate change and biodiversity loss, but this cannot be achieved if it doesn’t represent and support the community. If you like what we stand for, we want to hear from you about how we can best serve the community, you can reach out to us by contacting rowena@britishecologicalsociety.org.

And, if increasing the impact of your research is a goal of yours, we are running a lunchtime workshop at the BES Annual Meeting entitled “Research with impact: Communicating with stakeholders and the public”.  The workshop will run on Thursday the 12th of December. We hope to see you there!