To search the Archives website, use the Advanced Search.

AAAS Resolution:
Selection of New Editor of Science

The Editorial Board of Science is about to select a new editor. Representatives and members of Section K (Social, Economic, and Political Sciences) have repeatedly expressed concern about the content of Science over the past several years, and it is widely believed that Science does not encourage submissions from social scientists. Accordingly, Section K requests that:

1. in the selection of a new editor, consideration should be given to potential editors' knowledge of or at least interest in the social and behavioral sciences;
2. the next publication of the Science policy statement on submissions and publications should include an explicit statement that both brief reports and longer articles are solicited from social and behavioral scientists, not just from physical and biological scientists, and that interdisciplinary submissions are particularly welcome;
3. the Editorial Board of Science might be restructured to include a significantly broader range of social and behavioral science expertise on the editorial advisory board, and this range of expertise should be drawn upon by the new editor;
4. the new editor of Science might be urged to give at least proportionate emphasis tot he social and behavioral sciences in other ways as well, through mechanisms such as (but not limited to) news and comment articles on social and behavioral science activities, special issues devoted to social/behavioral science topics, book reviews and so forth.

[Adopted by AAAS Section K, May 27, 1984.]