Call for papers for 2026

2025-10-17

(Re)Configurations of Scientific Journals: Between Tradition and Transformation

The scientific journal, often regarded as the cornerstone of scholarly communication, is now facing perhaps the greatest crossroads in its history. On the one hand, long-standing standards that have given science its solidity remain; on the other, emerging transformations challenge the very notion of what a scientific publication is.

What, after all, does editorial quality mean in a landscape marked by inequalities? To what extent do the metrics used to measure impact truly capture the value of the knowledge produced? How should we navigate a scenario where articles can be written by machines, where the massive production of papers puts credibility at stake, while research data emerges as a scientific document in its own right? And what happens to the memory of science when everything seems to revolve only around the “new” and the “recent”?

This thematic issue invites reflections on these and other questions from different perspectives. More than offering ready-made diagnoses, it seeks contributions that challenge certainties, reveal contradictions, and propose pathways to understand the present and imagine the future of scientific journals.

The aim is to create a space for research that unveils the backstage of scholarly publishing — its practices, dilemmas, power struggles, and survival strategies — without losing sight of the role journals still play as spaces of legitimation of knowledge.

More than a thematic issue, this is a call to break silences and challenge comfort zones. If scientific journals have often been presented as neutral and immutable spaces, this call is grounded in the idea that they are living arenas, permeated by disputes, innovations, and contradictions. Thus, researchers are invited to contribute with critical analyses and innovative proposals that problematize the apparent — and perhaps necessary — reconfiguration of scientific publications.

Topics

Models of governance and editorial legitimation
1. Challenges of professionalization and volunteer work in editorial practices
2. Shared management (multi-institutional approaches)
3. Editorial policies: DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility)
4. Mediation between scientific production, the market, and public policies
The scientific publishing market
1. Recent transformations in the scholarly publishing landscape
2. The importance of professional management and skilled teams for sustainability
3. Experiences of remuneration, volunteerism, and collaboration in editorial practices
4. Business models and funding strategies (APCs, sponsorship, advertising)
5. Balancing editorial quality with market pressures
Tensions in the scientific system
1. Growth of the parallel publishing market
2. Predatory journals
3. Pressures to publish in a restricted and competitive environment
4. Scientific rigor and quality vs. market reservation
5. Sale and hijacking of scientific journals
Article retractions
1. Retractions as a mechanism to correct the scientific record: limits, potentials, and impacts
2. Updating databases and indexes: how different platforms address (or ignore) retracted articles
3. Impact of retractions on bibliometric indicators: h-index, citation metrics, altmetrics
4. Editorial governance and journal responsibilities: communication practices, transparency, and adherence to international guidelines (COPE, ICMJE, etc.)
5. The gap between correcting the literature and its real effects in practice: persistent citations to retracted papers and the circulation of scientific misinformation
6. Retractions and social trust in science: ethical, cultural, and institutional implications of (in)efficient handling of retractions
Metrics and indicators
1. The validity of traditional indicators in measuring impact
2. Citations vs. quality: what should prevail?
3. Multiple impacts of a scientific article beyond citations
4. The need for new indicators of use, impact, and visibility
Artificial Intelligence and scientific journals
1. Impacts and perspectives of AI-mediated articles
2. Quality and originality concerns in AI-generated texts
3. Scientific ethics and integrity in the use of AI
4. Possibilities of responsible and balanced use of AI in editorial processes
Open Access
1. Advances and challenges of the Open Access movement
2. Business models (APCs, subsidies, sponsorships) and sustainability
3. Democratization vs. economic barriers to publication
4. Preprints, overlay journals, and repositories as new access formats
Research data and open science
1. Research data as a form of scientific publication
2. Data repositories: curation, interoperability, and citation
3. Ethical issues in data sharing
4. The role of datasets in science evaluation and impact
5. Data colonialism
New formats and media for scholarly communication
1. Multimodal publications (videos, podcasts, interactive articles)
2. Social media, altmetrics, and the circulation of knowledge
3. Transformations of the traditional scientific article into dynamic formats
4. Online communities and collaborative validation of knowledge
Memory and preservation of science
1. Preserving scientific memory in the face of the logic of immediate impact
2. The role of journals, repositories, libraries, networks, and other initiatives in the preservation and access of publications over time
3. Digital archiving, interoperability, and long-term preservation
4. The risks of a “memoryless science” and the forgetting of fundamental contributions