Rethinking Ecology is an open access journal that aims at fostering both forward thinking and the publication of novel ideas in ecology. The term ecology in this instance should be understood in the broadest sense. Contributions from any aspect of the discipline of ecology are welcome (e.g. evolution, ecophysiology, environmental sciences, global change biology, human ecology and decision ecology).

In many journals, perspective articles are commissioned and only well-established or renowned scientists have the opportunity to express new ideas. At the core of Rethinking Ecology is the fact that perspective articles are not commissioned by the journal. We believe that novel ideas do not arise from direct invitations, are not the exclusive privilege of already renowned scientists, and may arise from scientists anywhere in the world. Our aim is to enable authors to publish their best ideas and perspectives, regardless of their seniority, their publication track record, their gender, or their country of origin. Perspective papers have traditionally been the territory of well-established scientists; this journal challenges that dominance.

To ensure every manuscript is assessed with the complete absence of bias during the peer review process, we chose to use a double-blind process where reviewers do not see the name of the authors. We believe that divulging authors’ identity to reviewers is unnecessary to the peer-review process; only the content of the manuscript is of relevance. In a world with no conflict of interest (declared or undeclared) and no bias (conscious or unconscious), a fully open model where reviewers and authors are named seems like a sensible approach. But, it is known that bias and conflict of interest do exist in science (Lieff Benderly 2016). In the context of a journal that publishes new ideas, to divulge authors names to reviewers is at best unnecessary, and at worse could interfere with a fair peer-review process.

In addition to this double-blind review process, reviewers will not be asked for a formal recommendation to publish. Reviewers are asked to comment on and score a set of specific questions (Table 1), while the editors will make their decision based on reviewers’ comments and scoring. With this model, we aim at streamlining the peer-review process and shorten the time from submission to acceptance, which has remained at around 100 days for the past 36 years (Powell 2016).

Table 1.Download as CSV 

Scoring system used to evaluate a submission

SCORE CATEGORY	CRITERIA	Acceptance cut-off
Novelty Score	How novel is the idea/hypothesis?	75%
Feasibility Score (testability / likelihood / applicability)	Does the idea/hypothesis arise from or is supported by rigorous arguments? Is the idea/hypothesis testable? Is the new term/definition useful?	50%
Scholarship Score	Comprehensive knowledge and good use of the current literature	66%
Literacy Score	English, grammar, clarity, logical flow etc.	75%

For perspective papers, authors cannot be expected to increase the novelty or the feasibility of their idea. Therefore, low Novelty or Feasibility scores will lead to rejection. Low scores in Scholarship or Literacy, however, can be acted on and will therefore likely lead to a revision of the manuscript (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Decision diagram based on scoring for Novelty, Feasibility, Scholarship and Literacy (see Table 1 for full description of each category).

Another singularity of Rethinking Ecology is the inclusion of a percentage-based Author Contribution Index (ACI) that accurately reflects the contribution of each co-author. This index is a unique feature that provides readers with a contribution metric. It is based on a single percentage contribution for each co-author and constitutes a very simple (and universal) metric. The percentage contribution of each author is agreed upon by the co-authors and provided when the manuscript is submitted.

Percentage contribution and the ACI index will be featured on every paper published in Rethinking Ecology to establish the true contribution of each co-author and limit ‘guest authorship’ (i.e. inclusion of authors who did not significantly contribute to the work), an unethical and long-time denounced but still recurrent practice in science publishing (Bennett and Taylor 2004). The number of articles focusing on the issue of co-authorship has seen a sharp increase in recent years (Figure 3). Many of these articles propose solutions to tackle this issue, including various indices or measures of author contribution (for a recent review see Abambres and Arab 2016). However, we have been unable to find any ecological journal who has implemented a quantitative measure of co-authors contribution, although some journals publish a qualitative summary of author contribution (e.g. Ecology Letters, PeerJ, PlosOne).

Figure 3.

Recent increase in publications focusing on the issue of co-authorship in science papers, based on a search on the ISI Web of Knowledge database using the following command: TITLE: (co-author*) OR TITLE: (coauthor*).

We believe that open access is essential to the global dissemination of scientific research. However, in the current publication model, the relationship between research funds and open access journals only goes in one direction. Rethinking Ecology proposes a more sustainable publishing model where Article Publication Charges (APC) are kept affordable, and crucially, a proportion of the APC is dedicated to supporting researchers in developing countries. Through this unique feature, Rethinking Ecology will directly foster and build scientific activity in countries where the scientific community may have limited access to resources for small projects, conference attendance, etc. Although this contribution may be modest (US$100 per paper), it is sufficient to kick-start pilot studies and other activities.

We aspire to lead by example and hope that this model will be adopted by many other journals, which could generate significant funds to support the wider scientific community. We have chosen to focus on the South Pacific region for Rethinking Ecology, acknowledging the origin of the journal and New Zealand’s close cultural connections to it. The support funds generated by Rethinking Ecology authors will be donated to, and administrated by, an in-country panel of scientists based in Fiji. Projects supported will be summarised on the journal website to allow the scientific community to find out about the projects that the journal has been able to support.