Call for abstracts: Approaches to Global Social Challenges by Early Career Researchers in the Global South and diasporas.
Call for abstracts: Approaches to Global Social Challenges by Early Career Researchers in the Global South and diasporas.
Volume 3 (2024): 1 (Aug 2024): Special Collection: Limitations and Possibilities of Justice in Education and the Implications for Sustainable Futures. Guest Edited by Maria Balarin and Lizzi O. Milligan
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Approaches to Global Social Challenges by Early Career Researchers in the Global South and Diasporas: An open call for abstracts
Global Social Challenges Journal is a not-for-profit, open access journal with a mission to address urgent global social issues through interdisciplinary research. We invite Early Career Researchers (who we define as either prior to or within three years of completing PhD studies) from the Global South and diasporas to propose either full length articles (up to 8500 words excluding references) or ’interventions’ addressing any contemporary global social challenge. ‘Interventions’ are our shorter (3500 word) format, offering lively and timely interjections on a particular global challenge. They are written in highly accessible language, engaging practically and intellectually beyond a narrowly conceived academy, and often include a call for action. They fall into three categories: policy and practice, provocations and debates. Learn more about interventions.
We publish on sixteen main challenges, but we encourage scholars to propose fresh formulations if they wish. The challenges are:
- Cities and communities
- Climate change, energy and sustainability
- Conflict, security and peace
- Democracy, power and governance
- Education and Learning
- Equity, diversity and inclusion
- The future of work, finance and the economy
- Health and wellbeing
- Hunger, food, water and shelter
- Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches
- Justice, law and human rights
- Life stages and intergenerationality
- Migration, mobilities and movement
- Poverty, inequality and social justice
- Society, culture and arts
- Technology, data and society
We will be looking for a clear sense of the global social challenge, its location within a broader scholarly literature, and an attempt to engage plausible ways ahead to address the challenge meaningfully.
We are particularly receptive to submissions from a new generation of Early Career Researchers located in the global South (or in diasporas) to address a specific global social challenge from their distinct vantage point. The intent is to stimulate further reflection on how social scientists identify contemporary global social challenges as well as process them. We remain particularly curious to learn more about how context (historical, cultural, political and economic) may have a direct bearing on what we deem significant, and on how we perceive and attempt to resolve these challenges. The journal is based in the social sciences, while engaging with research from all disciplines: we will not privilege any specific disciplinary persuasion, but encourage interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives.
We invite Early Career Researchers to submit a short (250 word max) abstract outlining the scope and argument of their proposed paper, and some supplementary information about the submission. Download the supplementary information form. The abstract and the accompanying form should be emailed to the Managing Editor, Sarah Bird, at info@globalsocialchallenges.com. The Editors in Chief of the journal will consider all abstracts and either decline the abstract or offer constructive feedback to help the author to develop the paper.
The Editors in Chief will nominate a member of the editorial team to provide ongoing mentoring to the author as they write up their paper.
Please note that all papers will then be subject to double anonymous peer review, and will only be accepted for publication if they meet the quality standards of the journal. No Article Processing Charges are payable. This is an open call for abstracts with no fixed timetable.
From 2025, Global Social Challenges Journal will institute two awards for the best annual research article and intervention from an Early Career Researcher in the Global South and diasporas – all papers submitted will be considered for this award.
Interventions
Interventions are our shorter (3500 word) publication format. They offer accessible, lively and timely interjections on a particular global social challenge, and are designed to give our readers a more textured sense of the events, impacts and debates that inspire, shape and sometimes challenge the core research contributions of the journal. Interventions fall into three categories:
Policy and practice
Policy and practice papers explore the processes of knowledge exchange, co-production and impact that widen the research community and/or adapt research to the needs of particular groups or stakeholders. Contributing to the journal’s commitment to foster dialogue between academics, policy makers, thought-leaders, NGOs, practitioners and the public, these interventions will develop understanding of how research can be set to meet one or more global social challenges. Some will follow the making of specific policy briefings, tracing processes of design and dissemination, where others will document journeys of co-production or participatory learning. We encourage a full spectrum of methodological underpinnings, from impact evaluation to co-production and other participatory approaches. For this category only, internal review may be supplemented by input from an external individual with relevant policy knowledge or experience.
Provocations
A provocation is a genre of writing that stimulates or incites new ways of thinking and acting, sketches a new trajectory or links different fields of enquiry, provides a springboard for ongoing discussion of pressing issues and articulates the global reach of its central problem or question, even when highlighting a particular geographical example.
Debates
Debates address contemporary matters of concern, strategies for change or forms of organisation that respond to global social challenges, where there is an element of debate and disagreement around contentious issues. The intervention is unlikely to pose a resolution, but rather lays out the lines of contention so as to invite further reflection and response. Opposing views on an important new book might constitute one possible focus, or issue-focused debates written either as one voice with multiple perspectives, or as a dialogue, or two separate mutually responsive sections. We also welcome debate contributions that respond to arguments in papers we have published, and in turn invite other responses.
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