Call for papers for JRSNZ COVID-19 open access supplement

COVID-19 has become a global pandemic, altering the world extensively as we adapt to rapid changes in the ways we live, learn and work. Countries worldwide are facing an emergency and, to battle growing infections, are implementing wide-ranging social-distancing strategies and unleashing unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus to support economies. In Aotearoa, the Government responded quickly to the Coronavirus crisis by shutting international borders to travellers on 19 March and enacting a non-essential-business lockdown on 25 March, in the hopes of controlling the virus’s spread.

As the flagship title of Royal Society Te Apārangi, the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand is planning an Open Access supplement on the latest scientific findings and knowledge across disciplines on the COVID-19 pandemic, especially focusing on Aotearoa. This project has a dual purpose: to elucidate our understanding of the disease and its control measures, and to call on the Aotearoa research community to jointly explore, manage and understand the pandemic’s significance and impacts on our society, economy and people.

The subjects covered in this supplement will include, but will not be limited to, public health, community medicine, clinical medicine, hauora and Pacific health, health inequities, virology, epidemiology, infection control, pharmacology, biochemistry, microbiology, AI technology, mathematics, statistics and probability, social and clinical psychology, sociology, public policy, international relations, area studies, te ao Māori and Pacific studies, economics, and business and finance. All COVID-19 submissions should be original, and display clear novelty and impact.

Expressions of Interest are sought from across the New Zealand research community. Please email a preliminary title, indicative author list and a short descriptive paragraph outlining the scope of your proposed manuscript as soon as convenient to the editorial office before 22 May 2020. Our editors will decide on which manuscripts to invite for the supplement, and will notify the invited authors by 15 June 2020. Note that an invitation to submit does not guarantee acceptance for publication; acceptance will depend on the outcome of the peer review process and on authors meeting critical time schedules. 

We anticipate that the deadline for manuscript submission will be September 2020, and revision accepted for publication by March 2021. Each manuscript will be published online as soon as the manuscript is finally accepted; the supplement in its entirety is expected to be published around May 2021. The editorial team will ensure that the project runs to schedule; late papers that miss the above due dates won’t be published in the supplement, although they may be included in a subsequent regular issue. 

All papers published in this supplement will be fully open access and the usual OA Article Processing Charges (APC) will be covered by Royal Society Te Apārangi. 

We hope the Aotearoa research community will respond to this call with high-calibre contributions that will be of significant value to our society for the years to come.

E ngā manu kai mātauranga mā, kia kaha te tono mai ki te kaupapa nei.