About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Science and technology infuse the world in which we live, from the nature of healthcare and environmental policy to labor-management relationships in workplaces and the organization of political campaigns and political candidates’ platforms.  The centrality of science and technology in social life means there is a vital space for scholars of science, technology, and society to intervene in meaningful ways in discussions of the most crucial issues of the day.  Engaging Science, Technology, and Society is intended as a vibrant, double-blind peer-reviewed venue for these conversations.

Toward this end, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society will be a site of experimentation with new forms of writing and publication.  We will be a big tent that creates opportunities for those who formally identify with science and technology studies to publish alongside scholars from a range of other fields whose work speaks to the relationship between science/ technology and society/ culture.  Finally, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society will seek to be relevant and accessible to a wide array of audiences from STS scholars and undergraduate students to science and technology practitioners, policymakers and activists. 

Engaging Science, Technology, and Society, the open access journal of The Society for Social Studies of Science, aims to be a venue for realizing these “openness” objectives.   Toward this end, we are interested in publishing informed and rigorous work that takes risks, insightfully challenges established conceptual orientations and methods, and speaks boldly. We are committed to thorough and constructive double-blind peer review and consequent revision that will lead to the highest quality articles, and we will endeavor to produce work that is clear and engaging reading for multiple audiences.

 

Engaging Science, Technology, and Society will publish material in the following genres:

  • Individual Research Articles:  (Double-blind Peer-reviewed) Single- or co-authored original research articles.  Here we will consider theoretical papers and empirical studies.  High value will be placed on research that provides conceptually guided analysis of empirical data.
 
  • Thematic Collections:  (Double-blind Peer-reviewed) Single- or co-authored original research articles submitted as part of a group of papers organized by a specific STS theme (on the order of a "special issue").

 

  • Considering Concepts: (Double-blind Peer-reviewed) The aim of these 2k-word essays is to introduce a concept of potential use in the analysis of broadly STS-related issues.  Such essays should introduce the key concept, give a single empirical illustration of its use and describe how the concept might profitably be extended. Please note:
  1. We expect the presentation of new concepts or of concepts that while an author or others have characterized the concept in other publications, the "Considering Concept" submission constitutes significant further development of the concept;
  2. We will consider submissions where the author has already developed the concept elsewhere in cases where the submitted essay applies the concept to new empirical terrain and can make a compelling case that this new empirical application adds scholarly value;
  3. We will not accept verbatim excerpts from published work, and one way or another we except at least 50% of the content of the submission to be new.  We recognize that "new" may be hard to define precisely, but we are looking for original submissions, not retreaded scholarship.

 

  • Debates/ Interactions: (Double-blind Peer-reviewed) We seek to promote debates within the “pages” of Engaging Science, Technology, and Society.  Where reviewers and the editors believe debate on one of our accepted, full-length research articles is warranted, we will seek commentators and provide the article author an opportunity to respond.  In addition, we welcome proposals for debate themes and possible participants.  Here we will ask several authors to write 5k-word essays on the debate theme.
 
  • Review Essays:  (Double-blind Peer-reviewed)  5k-word review essays on themes of significant interest to STS scholars and people beyond the STS community.
 
  • Critical Engagements:  (Double-blind Peer-reviewed) Approximately 1K-word papers that critically consider a problem and offer a kind of extended op-ed where an STS lens enables the author to analyze a topical problem.  We seek jargon-free essays, no or minimal references/notes, and we encourage use of in-text links for further exploration.  We seek essays that use the scholarly tools and expertise of the writer to consider matters that are "in the news" or matters of active public discussion.  We seek jargon-free essays, akin to opinion-oriented long-form journalism.   Below are two examples of the kinds of work we are interested in.    One of these pieces is longer than the 1K length we are seeking, but it is a good example of the kind of substance in which we are interested.  No references or notes, and we encourage use of in-text links for further exploration. 
  1. Honeybees Under Threat by Daniel Lee Kleinman & Sainath Suryanarayanan
  2. Can an Algorithm be Wrong? by Tarleton Gillespie

 

  • Traces: (Peer-reviewed by the Editorial Board and occasionally another external scholar) Invited 6k-word essays by prominent scholars asked to (re)trace their intellectual paths and discuss the experiences that led them to STS and to particular set of interests, empirical foci, or concepts. 

 

 

 

Peer Review Process

The Review Process: 

SUBMISSIONS BASICS: During pre-review all submissions will be checked to ensure that they have met the basic requirements for submission (such as word limits, permissions to use data/imagery, Chicago style, thoroughness and appropriate formatting of bibliographic references, document formatting, data/imagery specifications, author anonymity, etc). 

PRE-REVIEW: After the basics are approved, submissions will then go into a phase of substantive pre-review during which editors will thoroughly read and discern whether the submission is appropriate for Engaging Science, Technology, and Society.  Authors should expect a pre-review decision within two weeks of submission.

DOUBLE-BLIND PEER REVIEW:  After submissions are deemed appropriate for the journal, they will then move into a process of double-blind peer review.

DECISIONS: A first decision will be made on the basis of reviewer recommendations and ultimately at the discretion of the executive editor.  Within four months of submission, manuscripts will receive a verdict of either Revise & Resubmit; Accept with Minor Revisions; or Reject.  For those papers that receive an R&R, a revisions plan will be developed through consultations between the managing editor and the author.  Revisions will be sent for re-review.

Publication Frequency

Engaging Science, Technology, and Society will publish manuscripts upon acceptance in one rolling annual volume each year.  Material will be organized by sections that denote publication type.

Open Access Policy

Engaging Science, Technology, and Society provides open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

There are no "Author Processing Charges" (APC) and/or submission fees to contribute to and/or read Engaging Science, Technology, and Society.

All papers in Engaging Science, Technology, and Society become available immediately upon publication, and readers are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, link to the full texts of its articles, and use them for any other lawful purpose, in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.

ESTS Website Image/Painting Credit

ESTS is priviledged to be able to feature a painting by artist Angie Renfro.  Angie is a generous human being and amazing painter and we highly recommend that people visit her site and support her work.

 

i think of you now and then
Featured Artist: Angie Renfro

Publication Ethics and Conflicts of Interest

When authors submit papers to Engaging Science, Technology, and Society, they will be required to agree to a conflict of interest statement and confirm that their submited manuscript adheres to principles of ethical publishing:

Conflict of Interest

  • Authors must declare all relevant competing interests for consideration during the review process.
  • A competing interest is anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision making, or publication of research or non-research articles submitted to Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. Competing interests can be financial or non-financial, professional, or personal. Competing interests can arise in relationship to an organization or another person.
  • In your statement, please provide information on any potential competing interests that obtain in your case.  If none apply in your case, please state that no competing interests apply to the manusript you are submitting.

Publishing Ethics

• The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation.

• Researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation.

• Researchers should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.

• Researchers should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarised, and has not been published elsewhere.

• Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work.

• The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.

• Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed.

[Citation: Wager E & Kleinert S (2011) Responsible research publication: international standards for authors. A position statement developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore, July 22-24, 2010. Chapter 50 in: Mayer T & Steneck N (eds) Promoting Research Integrity in a Global Environment. Imperial College Press / World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (pp 309-16). (ISBN 978-981-4340-97-7)]

INDEXING

Beginning with V. 4 2018, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society is indexed in the Web of Science core Collection Emerging Sources Citation Index.

About the ESCI: The Emerging Sources Citation Index provides Web of Science Core Collection users with expanded options to discover new areas of research in evolving disciplines, as well as relevant interdisciplinary scholarly content across rapidly changing research fields.

All journals in the ESCI have been rigorously hand-selected and reviewed by our editorial team as important titles to key opinion leaders, funders, and evaluators worldwide. The list is continuously evaluated and evolving, with new titles being added regularly. These titles are also being evaluated on a continual basis for inclusion in the  the SCIE, SSCI, and AHCI.

 

Since its inception (2015) ESTS is also indexed in The Directory of Open Access Journals.

Sponsors

Engaging Science, Technology, and Society is published and sponsored by The Society for Social Studies of Science.

 

 

 

Sources of Support

The Society for Social Studies of Science

Journal History

Engaging Science, Technology, and Society is a peer-reviewed, open-access scholarly publication of The Society for Social Studies of Science (4s).  At its 2013 annual conference, 4s collectively recognized the need for an STS journal that is open – to both a broad readership and authors who are engaged in the production of knowledge about science and technology in their social contexts. Throughout 2014, under the committed leadership of Kelly Moore and Gary Lee Downey, 4s Council and the Publications Committee (Wen-Hua Kuo, Abby Kinchy, Ali Kenner, Laurel Smith-Doerr, Stephen Zehr, Paige Miller, and Katie Vann) devised an action plan for the journal. With great fortune, by Fall 2014 they were able to celebrate the incoming leadership of Engaging's inaugural Editor, Daniel Lee Kleinman.   In keeping with 4s's politics, Engaging joins a rare handful rigorously peer-reviewed academic journals that do not charge author processing fees or subscription fees, the so-called "Diamond Model of Open Access."  In this regard we are grateful for the inspiration that we have found in the examples set by our colleagues at such courageous journals as ephemera, IJoC, HAU, and tripleC.  The Society for Social Studies of Science offers Engaging Science, Technology & Society in an effort to foster the development of truly open-access publishing and well-informed critical technoscientific thought and action in society.