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Publish with us

Photo of a pen on paper by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

We primarily aim at hosting contributions from EASSH members and science policy-makers from within the EU.  However, we would also publish contributions from the broader community, provided that they are relevant and advance the mission of EASSH. 

We wish to provide contributors with an opportunity to voice their views, share their research and analysis, and attract interest from audiences beyond their immediate community: journalists, policy-makers, researchers and research managers, who may not dive deep into academic literatures but are interested in SSH and policy.

We wish to publish posts that address challenges and opportunities for SSH researchers and their institutions, as well as posts that illustrate the value of SSH research for issues of broad public and policy interest. 

 We welcome:

  • Short reports from relevant research

  • Reviews of relevant books, reports and other important sources

  • Opinion pieces

  • Responses to relevant policies and policy announcements

  • Experiences from professional practice that relate to  SSH

We value rigour, integrity, critique and honest conversation.  Sources used should be referenced, where possible using links.

We appreciate that our contributors will have diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and promise to review texts with this in mind. Our editor will typically review contributions and get back to contributors with comments and suggestions within 2 weeks. We may edit contributions to increase readability. We will always send the author the final version for approval or for any final edits that may be deemed appropriate before publication.

If you have an idea for a blog post, please get in touch with nikos.kastrinos@eassh.com with a brief outline. Our editor will give you feedback and discuss deadlines.

Unless otherwise specified, our articles are published under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0  (CC BY 3.0) and other blogs and publications are free to use them, with attribution.  Please let us know if this poses a problem for you and if you would like to make alternative arrangements. 

The following suggestions may help with the writing process:

 

  1. Your audience comes first.   The EASSH Lens addresses research policy makers, managers and practitioners from diverse national, educational and professional backgrounds.  An academic background can be assumed but specialist terminology is best avoided.  Beware of context-specific understandings that do not translate across communities and are frequent causes of  misunderstandings. 

  2. Dive deep – do not scratch the surface.  Think about the point you are making. What you want your readers to learn, to reflect on, to critique and how to make them do it.  Focus on that, say what you want to say and try to not talk around the subject. Beware of neighbouring topics. Scratching related surfaces could stimulate your readers to think but it can also cause them to lose attention and miss the point that you are making. 

  3. Assume a short attention span.  Try to capture attention quickly and make the point in the first one or two sentences.  This is when a reader chooses whether to keep reading or not.  Being succinct and keeping focus may seem as a challenge, and it is, but it is also the key for achieving high readership. Do not hesitate to use headings to break down the text and to direct the readers towards the parts that they may find most interesting.

  4. Readers may know nothing about your topic. They need to see the big picture before they can dive in. They need to understand how what they will read relates to them.  Starting with a story or a personal anecdote may help readers relate to the topic immediately.

Title:

  • Keep it short (< 10 words)

  • Make it catchy, intriguing, easy to read, ask a question (if possible)

  • Goal: Focus on the main message of the blog post, catch the attention of the reader, define the question that the article will address

  • Use the main keyword

Tags:

  • List the keywords that the blog post is about

  • If relevant, list the page(s) on the EASSH website that the blog refers to (news, position papers)

Teasing sentence(s):

  • Goal: Create interest for the SSH, encourage the reader to read the blog post

  • Use your main keywords

  • Short and active sentences (100-200 words max)

Content:

  • Introduction

    • Right after the teaser sentence(s), this explains what the article will address

    • Use keywords

  • Subheadings

    • Break up the content into different parts

    • Use your keywords

    • Help the reader understand what this part of the text is about

    • Help the reader skip to the most relevant part(s) for them

  • Paragraphs

    • Make it easy for the reader to read the article

    • Use paragraphs with 6-12 sentences max (50-100 words)

  • Quotes

    • Use a strong quote which makes a clear point

    • 10-30 words max

  • Conclusions/recommendations:

    • Sum up the main takeaway messages from the article

    • Add one or two recommendations for future work on the topic of the article

  • CTA (Call to Action)

    • Explain simply to the reader what you would like them to do now

Length:

  • A blog post should be around 500 to 1,000 words 

Illustrations and links:

  • Suggest a picture or graphic to accompany your article

  • The image should refer to the keywords or core takeaway messages

  • You can use Unsplash for freely-usable images

  • Link to other relevant pages referred to in the article