Dear Colleagues,

The Journal of Research Practice is seeking submissions. Since it was 
launched, the journal has become a strong venue for international, 
interdisciplinary contributions focused on how we do research and why 
we make the choices we do.

This an open access journal with full peer review. You will find the journal at

http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp

Best regards,

Ken Friedman

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About JRP:

Focus and Scope

Journal of Research Practice (JRP) seeks to develop our understanding 
of research as a type of practice, so as to extend and enhance that 
practice in the future. The Journal aims to highlight the dynamics of 
research practice, as it unfolds in the life of a researcher, in the 
growth and decline of a field, and in relation to a changing social 
and institutional environment. The Journal welcomes deliberation on 
the basic issues and challenges encountered by researchers in any 
specific domain. The Journal aims to explore why and how different 
activities, criteria, methods, and languages become part of research 
practice in any domain. This is expected to trigger interdisciplinary 
dialogue, mutual learning, facilitate research education, and promote 
innovations in different fields.

The Journal's scope is not defined in terms of academic disciplines. 
It cuts across disciplines and fields by drawing out the living 
dimensions of research unfolding through history, culture, research 
communities, professions, and of course the lives of individual 
researchers. The Journal seeks to study the evolving patterns of 
thinking and practice that underlie open inquiry in any domain. The 
scope also includes topics such as research training, research 
design, research utilisation, research policy, and innovative forms 
of research. The Journal targets all researchers, scholars, 
research-inclined professionals, and research students, irrespective 
of their disciplinary background. It seeks to attract reflective 
articles on the dynamics and challenges of research practice in 
context, as well as articles presenting experiences and learning from 
research carried out in an innovative way.

In order to promote wider participation in these deliberations, JRP 
will be published electronically in the open access mode.

Peer Review Process

Submission abstracts are usually shared in the Research_Practice 
online forum. Reviewers are generally selected from this forum. A 
submission can have three or more reviewers.

Each submission is first examined by the editor for its relevance to 
JRP's focus, scope, and editorial perspective. If found relevant, it 
is next examined to check whether the Author Guidelines have been 
followed adequately, especially the guidelines on Writing for JRP. 
The submission is expected to contain some critical self-reflection 
by the author(s) and be written for the broad and multidisciplinary 
readership of JRP.

Reviewers are requested to write their comments so as to be 
informative and helpful to the authors.

The typical time taken to review is about 4-6 weeks. After the 
editorial decision is made, all the reviewers get to read each 
other's review.

Call For Submissions

Submissions in English, clearly related to the Journal's editorial 
focus, are sought in the following four categories: (i) Main Article 
(about 6000 words), (ii) Research Design (about 3000 words), (iii) 
Provocative Idea (about 3000 words), and (iv) Review of published 
material (about 3000 words).

Main articles may relate to a general topic concerning research 
practice (e.g., research contexts, research methods, etc.) or focus 
on a specific research domain. If it is the latter, then special care 
needs to be exercised to tailor the article to focus on the generic 
challenges of doing research in that domain and the specific 
innovations developed. The language of the articles should be 
sensitive towards a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional, and 
multi-cultural readership. Each main article should make a 
contribution to our understanding of research practice, so as to keep 
open the possibility of extending and enhancing that practice in the 
future.

The Research Design section will carry research proposals, making 
explicit the context, available choices, and the actual research 
design being proposed. Submissions under this category should focus 
mainly on the methodological difficulties and justification of the 
choices, so that the work may be of interest to researchers in widely 
different research areas. It may also focus on the implications of 
using specific theoretical frameworks to approach the problem of 
research design. This section can also carry accounts of unfinished 
research, or research that ran into unexpected hurdles and could not 
progress. Among others, research students are also encouraged to 
contribute to this section.

The Provocative Idea section is meant for faster communication among 
researchers in different disciplines, who are looking for fresh 
ideas, new perspectives, and bold conjectures relating to some of the 
challenging puzzles of research in their specific domains. 
Contributions in this section may also make innovative suggestions 
concerning some generic aspect of research practice, cutting across 
disciplines and domains, e.g., research training or research 
utilisation.

The journal welcomes reviews of books, journal issues, Web sites, 
films, and other forms of published material that address some aspect 
of research practice. Reviewers should make an attempt to connect 
with the journal's editorial focus.

All submissions to the journal (except invited contributions and 
reviews) will be subjected to a process of double-blind review. 
Please consult the detailed Guidelines before posting your submission.

Editorial Perspective

1. Extending Organised Inquiry

 From interpreting text to observing nature, from designing systems to 
guiding actions, there is a long history of the human undertaking in 
quest of results that are novel, independent, and liberating in some 
way. This quest has attracted resources and talents of societies, 
commanding their respect in general. Institutions have flourished 
across the globe to nurture this kind of activity that has come to be 
known as research. Experience suggests that it has been difficult to 
regulate or contain this kind of activity within any specific logical 
or institutional form. Research has always remained partly 
unmanageable, partly deviant, despite historic tendencies to co-opt 
it into the so-called disciplines, professions, research centres, 
etc. That propensity of research, to maintain a degree of autonomy, 
despite various forms of restraint on it, is worth remembering for 
all of us who are inclined towards it and inspired by it.

Despite the success research has demonstrated over time, it has been 
under intense scrutiny, both from its practitioners and from the 
general public. As a consequence, new demands are being imposed on 
its practice and over its results, for example, the need to include 
users of the results in the process of doing research. Attempting to 
respond to such demands has not been easy.

Looking at the contemporary realities of research, we find it divided 
not only among disciplines and specialisms beyond recognition, but 
also ironically among research perspectives upheld by notions of 
method. While such plurality can add strength to the overall 
repertoire of research, it can also make researchers impervious to 
the generic qualities of their task, and thus forget their common 
roots. This can weaken their capacity to respond to new challenges in 
a satisfactory way.

This danger seems more real today, with researchers branching out 
into ever new contexts, entering into new alliances, and accepting 
ever new challenges--even those for which their tools and methods are 
not well adapted. As a result, there is a pressure to change, to 
adapt the tools and methods, while ensuring that the activity will 
still be regarded as research.

Researchers and a variety of research-oriented workers (including 
action researchers, creative problem solvers, flexible specialists, 
thinking therapists, organic intellectuals, etc., or generally 
speaking, reflective practitioners), who recognise that pressure to 
adapt and wish to respond to it in ways that still retain the generic 
qualities of research, can connect with each other and learn from 
their multiple innovations. For this, they have to compare accounts 
of the changing context of research in different areas, share their 
stories of adventure with new methods and new breeds of research, and 
articulate the emerging challenges to their work. This can be 
expected to generate a holistic and dynamic understanding of research 
as an evolving practice and produce the learning and insights 
necessary to steer the development of that practice in future.

Journal of Research Practice is expected to facilitate such 
interactions at a global level, cutting across disciplines, fields, 
and professions, so as to extend the boundaries of open and organised 
inquiry, in response to the ever new challenges posed before it.
2. Connecting Researchers

The journal would seek to develop our understanding of organised 
inquiry as it takes place in various disciplines, fields, and 
professions, especially as the practice of such inquiry adapts to its 
ever changing context. By publishing critically reflective accounts 
of research in all domains and fields, the journal would explore why 
and how particular principles and practices become part of organised 
inquiry in particular contexts, and also the generic learning 
researchers in other contexts can derive from it. This would serve 
the broader purpose of extending organised inquiry as a whole by 
learning from the successful and unsuccessful innovations in 
different areas of research. More specifically, the journal would 
explore themes connected with the following:

(a) Research as a Practice: The journal would explore the 
consequences of viewing research as an evolving practice. The 
responsibility of the research community to itself and to the public 
must also be considered, especially in cases where a research process 
(or product) leads to negative externalities.

(b) Open Inquiry: A journal would pursue the possibility of open 
inquiry, even in areas where it appear to be difficult. This would 
draw upon the interdependence and synergies among the sciences, arts, 
humanities, design, intervention, etc.

(c) Connecting Researchers: The journal should help create reflective 
conversations across disciplinary and professional boundaries. 
Therefore, authors need to be careful with the jargon and the 
embedded assumptions peculiar to a discipline or profession. The 
journal would promote connections among multiple knowledge systems.

(d) Contexts of Research: The journal would encourage reflection on 
the variety of contexts in which researchers find themselves. 
Innovations developed by researchers to deal with the challenges of 
these contexts would be studied. The prospects of these innovations 
for future research practice need to be assessed.

(e) Contemporary Relevance: The journal should connect with the human 
conditions of our times, help bridge multiple global divides, address 
institutional malfunctioning, explore the power of connective (and 
cooperative) technologies, and advance lifelong learning.

Journal of Research Practice aspires to become a shared space for 
people to explore and extend the powers of organised inquiry. 
Besides, it should become an indispensable resource for research 
education around the world.

Editors, Journal of Research Practice