New editorial teams for BISA journals
On 1 January new editorial teams took over at both of the BISA journals – Review of International Studies (RIS) and European Journal of International Security (EJIS).
Over the past four years Lead Editor of RIS, Professor Ruth Blakeley of the University of Sheffield, and Editor-in-Chief of EJIS, Professor Tim Edmunds of the University of Bristol, have achieved some great successes.
The quality of the work published in RIS is reflected in the journal’s impact factor, which has steadily increased over Ruth’s tenure. It is ranked in the top 25 IR journals.
Ruth and her team have focused heavily on addressing gender balance. At the start of their tenure, men outnumbered women in terms of publication at a ratio of around 3 to 1. Over the course of the tenure, 40% of the manuscripts they have published have been authored or co-authored by a woman. In the last two years they have further improved, with 49% of manuscripts published in 2018 authored or co-authored by a woman, and 50% in 2019. Ruth said:
“The composition of our editorial team was an important factor. Relatively few leading journals in the discipline are edited by a female lead editor, or have a majority of female co-editors. All members of the editorial team took seriously the need to encourage women authors to submit to the Review. We also worked hard to convey the message that the journal welcomes scholarship from women authors and is a friendly place for all authors.”
The new RIS editorial team is led by Martin Coward, University of Manchester. Martin said:
“In the next four years our ambition is to develop RIS in a number of ways. First and foremost we aim to maintain the journal’s reputation for initiating and leading debates at the forefront of International Relations research. Secondly, we aim to be proactive in positioning RIS at the forefront of emerging debates. We will continue the journal’s tradition of a competition for an annual special issue. Finally, we want to make a substantial contribution to the diversity of the journal and the wider field. We will continue the work the outgoing editorial team have done to increase the proportion of submissions and published articles having female scholars as the lead author. We would also like to improve the proportion of submissions and published articles by authors from underrepresented minority groups.”
EJIS, our newer journal, publishes theoretical, methodological and empirical papers at the cutting edge of security research. Welcoming high-quality research from around the world, EJIS covers all areas of international security including: conflict and peace building; strategy and warfare; environmental and food security; economic and energy security; human and everyday security; technology and security; and security governance.
Two of the greatest successes during Tim’s tenure have been the first Special Issue on Composing Global Security in issue 4:3 (2019), as well as the publication of their first Junior-Senior Dialogue in 3:3 (2018). Tim has been ably assisted by Elizabeth Kier, University of Washington (Lead Editor, North America) and Christian Bueger, University of Copenhagen (Lead Editor, Europe). Tim said:
“The outgoing team would like to thank all members of the Board for their hard work on the journal over the past five years. We appreciated this enormously, and the journal’s success would not have been possible without it. We owe special thanks to Theo Farrell, who, as Chair of the Board, has helped steer us to the place we are today.”
We are delighted to welcome the new EJIS team led by Professors Edward Newman (Leeds), Jason Ralph (Leeds) and Jacqui True (Monash), with a new team of associate editors in Leeds and regional editors around the world.
Both our journals are published by Cambridge University Press and BISA members can access them as part of their membership package.
