The Editor of Evidence & Policy has issued two open calls: a call for special issue proposals and a call for systemic reviews.

Call for special issue proposals

We are seeking proposals for special issues on any topic related to the intersections of research evidence, public policy, and practice. 

All proposals should contain the following sections:

Topic – What is the topic of the proposed special issue?Editor(s) – Who will be responsible for curating the special issue?

Rationale – Why is a special issue on this topic needed?

Scope – What types of papers or research questions will be invited for the special issue?

Recruitment – How will papers be recruited? [Note: Recruitment can occur via existing networks, as the result of a conference, via an open call for submissions, or ideally a combination of these mechanisms.]

Timeline – What is the timeline for the special issue?

Priority will be given to special issue proposals with the potential to recruit a demographically, geographically, and ideologically diverse pool of authors and perspectives. Special issue editors are responsible for recruiting authors, providing preliminary feedback on papers prior to formal submission and writing an editorial introduction to the special issue. The external peer review process for special issue papers is handled by the Evidence &Policy Editors in consultation with the special issue editors.

Previous special issues include:

Creativity and co-production [Fully Open Access Issue]

The many faces of disability in evidence for policy and practice

Opening up evidence-based policy: exploring citizen and service user expertise [Fully Open Access Issue]

Special issue proposals and questions can be sent by email to editor Zachary Neal at zpneal@msu.edu. Proposals received by 31 August 2023 will be considered by the editorial board.

Call for systematic reviews

All proposals should contain the following information:

Authors – Who will be responsible for conducting the review?

Topic – What topic will the review address?

Rationale – Why is a systematic review on this topic needed?

Search parameters – What search engines and keywords will be used to generate the initial pool of items? How many items are anticipated in the initial search?

Inclusion criteria – What criteria will be used to determine whether an item is eligible for inclusion in the review? How many items are anticipated to be included in the review?

Analysis – How will the included items be analyzed?

A commitment to (a) follow PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews, and (b) share the data generated by the review and the materials used to analyze these data.

Proposals will be reviewed by the Evidence & Policy Editorial Board, who will rank the proposals in terms of rigor and likely impact. The top ranked proposal will be invited for submission, and if accepted following external peer review, will be published Open Access with a waived article processing charge. The editorial board may choose to invite additional highly-ranked proposals for submission.

Systematic review proposals and questions can be sent by email to editor Dr. Zachary Neal at zpneal@msu.edu. Proposals received by August 31 2023 will be considered by the editorial board.