The EASST Review is owned and paid for by EASST and governed through the EASST council. One EASST council member is responsible for journals, including for the Review. The EASST Review is also an important communication channel for the EASST Council, with the ‘News’ section containing an update of the president and additional items, e.g. prizes, competitions, meeting calls etc.
The journal is run by the editor(s) (currently: editorial team), appointed by the council after an open call. Based on the high workload, the current editors have decided to share the tasks as an editorial team. Since the EASST Review is not a standard journal, the challenge is that content needs to be generated from the community. Everyone can make suggestions for publications and the editors also actively ask for contributions. The EASST Review team liases with the EASST council through attending council meetings.
The team approach has three main advantages: 1. spreading of workload; 2. capacity to support short-term breaks, e.g. maternity leave; 3. create continuity, e.g. if one team member steps down, the others can continue while adding another person, etc. This creates rolling capacity and prevents the problem that nobody is available to take over which results in a gap in our publications. This can be formalised through a call for a new member of editorial team, after which the editorial team selects a suitable candidate and proposes a new member to the council. The role of the team is important, as they have to work with the new person. The term of appointment is ideally 3 years with opportunity to prolong to 5 years. Nevertheless, the term of appointment does not necessarily follow a standard duration of years especially if people leave academia e.g. based on temporal restricted contracts. Ideally, a rotation system takes place with the current team leaving one by one, giving new team members an opportunity to work with experienced members to learn the process.
We welcome expression of interest for new editorial members, but recruitment takes place via an open call.
When a new member of the editorial team is needed, the recruitment process follows this process: a) the editorial team informs the EASST Council which issues an open call; b) the selection is carried on by a hiring committee made up of the editorial team and an EASST Council member; c) the hiring committee makes proposals to the EASST Council, who takes the final decision.
The editorial team is supported by an editorial assistant, who edits incoming pieces and liaises with authors on changes and additional info and/or pictures. The pieces are stored in a dropbox before they are uploaded on the website and created into a PDF, which is composed by a designer. The PDF has been kept in place, as it continues tradition, helps people to easily print the EASST Review, and allows for page numbers with articles. It is also supporting the archiving of issues on the website.
The costs of the review are – except of the general infrastructure maintenance of website etc – restricted to the editorial assistant and the designer creating the PDF. They both get paid per hour with current rate established by the council. Payments are arranged by invoice after each issue, checked by one person from the editorial team and forwarded to the EASST secretary for payment. We also recently agreed on some small costs for pictures if needed/appropriate. The editors are not compensated for their time working on the Review and/or liaising with the EASST council.
Currently the Review has different sections:
-Editorial
-STS Live (at least once a year we organise a conversation on a specific topic)
-STS Multiple (featuring a group or national organisation)
-Cherish not Perish (featuring a publication platform)
-Events (announcing events or providing summaries of past events)
-Translations (addressing shifts in meanings of STS and its concepts across borders and languages, including English summaries of relevant work published in other languages or impact work).
-Remembering (can be dedicated to persons, publications or events)
– News from the council
These sections were mainly invented and introduced by the former editorial board. Since they provide a well-organized and creative structure, we kept them in place. The sections don’t need to be filled in every issue, so the editorial team has freedom to compose and appropriate issues as they see fit and based on contributions received. We have recently introduced 2 new sections in order to provide more spaces of engagement for potential authors. We will however keep the sections to a workable number. These sections can be revised by all following editorial team members.
The EASST Review is not a standard journal and represents a community oriented platform. Every published issue aims to inform EASST members about current EASST related topics and raises comments about e.g. pressing scientific/political concerns. Every second year, the Autumn issue of the EASST Review highlights the EASST conference. For that, researchers who received funding support from EASST are strongly encouraged to write a report on their conference experience. The editorial team receives a list of supported researchers from the EASST council and the editorial assistant approaches them in case they do not approach the Review team themselves.
