SENTIO ISSUE 7 - CALL FOR PAPERS
Sentio Journal is now accepting submissions for research articles, features, and reflections until 25 May 2025!
Social Sciences Beyond Academia: Ideas, Innovation, Impact
The world is continuing to face rapid and growing challenges at local, national, and global levels. In efforts to address them, the social sciences have been engaging with a wide range of issues, including climate change and disaster, economic and political crises, human rights violations and advocacy, public health and education inequalities, and social welfare, to name a few. Academia’s engagement with these challenges, the UN has emphasised, is critical for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 (UNITAR 2021).
At the same time, there has been growing pressures on the social sciences. Over the recent years, we have seen various universities announcing redundancies in or closures of their social sciences departments, and the risk of shrinking financial support for social science research (e.g. The British Academy 2021; British Sociological Association 2024; Times Higher Education 2024). At the first instance, these developments confront us with questions such as, what is the point of the social sciences? What do the social sciences have to offer? They also, however, encourage us to consider the forces that structure the ways we think about social problems and the solutions to them, as well as how we do social science research.
Against this backdrop, Sentio Journal invites authors to consider the relationships between the social reality and the social sciences, as well as reflect on the (perceived) barriers between them. We are seeking submissions tackling or furthering the debates around the role and significance of the social sciences today. Potential areas of discussion include:
· What is the value of social science research today? What about the past and the future?
· What is good social science? What and who define valuable social science research? Do you think social sciences’ contributions/impacts have been assessed fairly?
· How well are our concepts, theories, and methodologies in the social sciences keeping up with “real life” changes? How should they keep up?
· How does your own research relate to present-day problems, or alternatively, how do present-day problems allow you to reflect on your own research?
· How would you reflect on your own positionalities within, between, transcending, and outside your research expertise and the social challenges today?
· How can inter- and multidisciplinary approaches or collaboration help to address today’s social problems? Alternatively, how can these approaches help to address the challenges facing the social sciences?
· How are social problems interconnected with social science research? How do they shape and challenge each other?
· How do precarity and the current research generation model in academia affect your freedom and ability, especially as a student or early career researcher, to carry out research?
· How should, and how have, social scientists engage/d with its critics and sceptics, advocates, and subjects/participants?
The list of questions is not exhaustive, and we encourage authors to be as creative as possible in interpreting the theme and connecting it to the subject of their own research or discipline. Authors may choose to locate their submission around one or more aspects of the theme.
Similarly, submissions are not limited to issues that are the typical topics of academia such as concepts, theories, methodologies, and the aims of the social sciences (e.g. causal explanation, interpretation, critique, etc). Authors are also encouraged to discuss the implementation of the social sciences outside academia (e.g. policymaking, non-academic careers), drawing on their own experiences and plans (personal, academic, and professional).
There is no restriction on who may submit to Sentio, although we highly welcome submissions from students and early career researchers.
TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS
Sentio invites submissions for publication in the following three sections:
Articles
1500-4000 words
Attend to philosophical or theoretical discussion, emergent empirical findings, or early-stage ideas. Potential areas include:
a. Philosophical, theoretical, or critical discussions about the theme as they relate to social science research generally, a specific discipline, or interdisciplinary approaches;
b. Empirical findings as they relate to the theme;
c. How the theme manifests (or should manifest) in quantitative and qualitative research practice.
Features
1000-2000 words
Offer a diverse space for commentaries, reviews, and interviews, tapping into less formally structured forms of intellectual curiosity and conversation. Potential areas include:
a. Interviews with social science scholars whose work engages with issues related to the theme;
b. Reviews of recent articles or public discourse engaging with the theme; and
c. Commentaries on recent debates on the theme, how it pertains to current affairs, or relationships to it in your discipline.
Reflections
500-1500 words
Deliver deliberately brief moments of lived experience across all stages of research and aspects of life and work as a researcher. These accounts are affective and offer poignant insights, nuancing and complementing the rigidity of established academic practice. Potential areas include:
a. Moments of a researcher’s experience, personal reflections, or emotional insights as they relate to the theme;
b. Stories that highlight the ways, means, and processes by which you as a researcher, or your research, embody the theme; and
c. How the researcher/author’s experiences and approaches have (or have not) evolved over time and location, and how this relates to the theme.
These examples are by no means exhaustive, and are simply some ideas to showcase the types of submissions that may be included in each section. We consider any submission with a well-justified link to the theme. This will be determined on a case-by-case basis by the editorial team following recommendations by peer reviewers, with each submission considered independently on its merits.
SUBMISSION INFORMATION
All submissions are made by completing the following two steps, by 25 May 2025, 23:59:
1. Sending the manuscript file (Word file only) to sentio@senss-dtp.ac.uk.
2. Entering the manuscript details on the following form: https://forms.office.com/e/HugDDgwFRz
The completion of the form is mandatory; manuscripts that are sent without the completion of the form will not be sent out for peer review.
All submissions will be double-blind peer reviewed, and we endeavour to inform authors with a preliminary decision by 26th June 2025. We aim to deliver final manuscript decisions by 16 August 2025. Manuscripts that are still under consideration by Sentio may not be submitted to another publication.
Student authors are advised to consult and seek the approval of their supervisor/s before submitting their manuscripts to Sentio Journal, especially if they intend to submit work related to their thesis.
All submissions accepted by Sentio Journal will be published open access.
For more information regarding our publishing policies, please visit https://sentiojournal.uk/submission-information/publishing-policy/
For queries, please contact sentio@senss-dtp.ac.uk.
CALL FOR REVIEWERS
Sentio Journal, the interdisciplinary journal run by SeNSS/SENSS doctoral students, is seeking reviewers across all three sections of the journal: articles, reviews, and reflections, all based around this year’s theme of “Social Sciences Beyond Academia: Ideas, Innovation, Impact”. The deadline for expressions of interest is Monday 30th May 2025, and the review period is expected to be between Tuesday 10th June – Saturday 16th August 2025. Reviewers will be asked to review an initial submission and the revised manuscript, matched according to their expertise, during this period.
Within the research community, peer review is an essential component of the writing and publishing process. Peer review ensures that research questions are considered carefully, their answers reached through both thorough, logical reasoning and the use of appropriate methodologies and methods. It encourages authors to deliver high-quality work that aims to push the boundaries of current knowledge.
Peer review serves as the backbone of the research community, and we have a responsibility to support the academic writing and publishing process that underpins our research careers. Peer reviewing is one of the ways you can contribute to research productively and serves as a method to engage with cutting-edge research in your field. Through peer review, you get the opportunity to read, evaluate and help develop ideas much earlier than their final publication in the public domain.
Peer review experience is also an excellent addition to your skillset and CV, demonstrating an ability to think critically, apply your expertise to other areas of research, and be exposed to areas of research that you may not normally interact with. You will understand what editors require from a high-quality publication, how they evaluate submissions supporting your own paper development for future submissions. Moreover, you will hone existing skills such as creative thought, time management, and effective communication. We encourage those invited to peer review for the journal to showcase this on their social media, LinkedIn, and CV.
Previous reviewers have said:
“I volunteered to reviewer as it gave me an opportunity to read and comment on some interesting papers. I really enjoyed making corrections and suggestions for the script I reviewed and felt a sense of self satisfaction from supporting other early researchers like me. I felt it gave me an insight into the review process.” - NH
“I gained experience in peer reviewing, which I have added to my LinkedIn profile and subsequent job applications. This has helped me elevate my skill set in a safe and responsive environment.” - JB
DETAILS AND REQUIREMENTS
Reviewers must be, at minimum, one of the following:
a. Currently studying (or have completed study) at postgraduate level, or
b. Are early-career researchers, or
c. Have acquired their expertise through at least one year of work experience (e.g. as a practitioner, consultant, etc.) and familiar with academic writing.
Ideally, our reviewers will be studying or working within an area in the social sciences.
Although previous reviewing experience would be helpful, it is not necessary as full training will be offered to all reviewers, along with detailed instructions on how to complete the review. Training is delivered online by Elsevier Research Academy, via self-directed study modules you can complete at your own pace. The training takes approximately 4 hours in total, and you will gain a ‘certified peer reviewer’ certificate upon completion. You will gain an understanding of the peer review process, receive advice on writing a helpful report, and learn about ethical issues that arise within the peer review process.
Given the broad interdisciplinary scope of the journal, we would like to recruit a diverse pool of peer-reviewers from universities and research institutions across our global community. To this end, we would be grateful if you could forward this Call for Reviewers on to any colleagues or students that may be interested in this opportunity. Reviewing for Sentio Journal does not represent a significant time commitment, as each reviewer is only usually asked to review one or two submissions.
To express an interest in reviewing for the upcoming issue of Sentio Journal, please complete the following form by 30th May 2025: https://forms.office.com/e/NWD4ie6BpK
For queries, please contact sentio@senss-dtp.ac.uk.