Editorial Policy

Aims and scope

Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales is a diamond open access journal published by the Vice-President of Research and Creation of Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. Due to the environmental crisis facing the planet, and given the importance of research and publications on this issue, we seek to contribute to current discussions with high-quality content edited and published by a Latin American journal. Addressing environmental problems and challenges requires the participation of all researchers who, from different subject areas and multiple approaches, reflect on the nature/humans relationship. This is why Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales is a multi- and interdisciplinary journal and a university project (rather than one belonging to a single school, department, or center).

Publishing modality and distribution

The journal releases three issues per year (January-April, May-August, and September-December), as well as just-accepted and ahead-of-print articles* on a regular basis. Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales publishes open topic as well as thematic issues. The latter are coordinated by one or more guest editors and include, in addition to the articles selected for the dossier, a section for open topic papers. Contents are published in Spanish, English, or Portuguese. Authors may submit original articles written in other languages which, when relevant to the public, can be translated into one of the above-mentioned languages. All research articles published in this journal have undergone double-blind peer review. To ensure long-term and permanent access to its contents and issues, the journal relies on the PKP Preservation Network digital archiving service, which uses the LOCKSS program for this purpose.

Thematic coverage

Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales thematic coverage is multidisciplinary and is detailed here: https://revistas.uniandes.edu.co/index.php/nys/about

Content typology

The journal publishes the following types of content within its issues:

• Research article. Original articles presenting research advances or results, which can propose replicable models, develop theoretical, experimental, historical, and empirical-quantitative analyses, etc., or describe qualitative case studies. Article length maximum: 9,000 words.
• Review article. Articles that present updated thematic reviews or reflections in a specific field of research. The bibliography should include about fifty references. Articles should be up to 9,000 words in length.
• Debate. Analytical writings aimed at generating academic discussions from different perspectives. They may offer additional or alternative interpretations or analyses to articles or other published documents on similar topics. The length of these writings may be up to 8,000 words.
• Document. Reflexive writings addressing problems, cases, sources, or texts of authorities, among others, which are related to the thematic coverage of the journal. Their length can be up to 9,000 words.
• Interview. Interviews with prominent figures in the field around the topics addressed by the journal. They can be up to 8,000 words long; the interviewer must participate in the editorial process approving the edited version of the interview for publication.
• Book reviews. We publish book reviews on works that, from different subject areas and multiple approaches, reflect on the nature/human being relationship. To submit a review, please write to naturalezaysociedad@uniandes.edu.co. 

Dialogues

Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales also has an academic dissemination section called Dialogues. These contents may be published within regular issues or outside them. They are reviewed by the journal’s Editorial Team, who will provide feedback to authors and suggest modifications for publication.

The contents in this section target diverse audiences; multiple actors can submit Dialogues content, since the objective here is to promote dialogue on topics of broad interest to academics, communities, teachers, students, public policymakers, among others. Dialogues section has a broad typology: we publish interviews, papers, short reflection articles, working papers, partial research results, photo essays, and commented exhibitions, among others, which can be in text or multimedia format.

Open access and CC licence

Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales is a diamond open access journal: we offer the journal’s contents to the public without charging authors or institutions for publication nor readers for accessing them. In addition, Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales publishes its content under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Creative Commons license, which means we allow users to share our content (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) if and only if they comply with the following terms:

• Attribution — Clearly and explicitly state the content’s credits (autohr(s)’s name, journal title, a copyright notice, a license notice, a disclaimer notice, and a link to the material).
• Non Commercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• No Derivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

For details on permitted usage, users must visit the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license description on the Creative Commons website: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en

Authorship and author rights

Authors who publish in Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales retain author's rights over their works and grant us authorization to publish them in the journal. Also, they declare that they know, understand, and accept that Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales is available to end users under the Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Likewise, in turn, users may access and read the journal’s content, as well as share it if and only if they comply with the terms of use of said license (see section "Open access and CC licence" above). Since the journal is published in Colombia, it adheres to author's rights as established in Decisión Andina 351 de 1993 and Colombia’s Ley 23 de 1982.

The journal receives proposals from one or more authors. In case of co-authorship, the specific contribution of each author in the text’s elaboration must be specifically stated.

NOTE: The journal's website footer complys with Universidad de los Andes legal guidelines. The copyright statement found there applies to all creative works found on the site except for journal content, for example, logos and website design, among others.

Executive board roles

Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales has an Editorial Team and an Editorial Board. The Editorial Team is in charge of making decisions about the contents to be published, proposing themes for thematic issues, guaranteeing compliance with academic and editorial quality standards, indexing and content dissemination processes, as well as the operative procedures of the publication. The Editorial Team is also responsible for inviting academics to join the Editorial Board, considering international quality criteria and the candidates’ expertise on the thematic coverage of the journal or else suggestions put forward by members who are already in the Board. The Editorial Team is also responsible for convening regular Board meetings and conducting timely consultations with its members.

The main role of the Editorial Board is to ensure that the editorial decisions regarding the journal align with its mission and stated thematic coverage. It periodically evaluates the status of the journal, reviews the topics on which it has published, proposes new topics that deserve to be worked on, and analyzes proposals for thematic issues, identifying whether they are relevant and timely for the journal; on occasions, it offers a supporting opinion on a submitted content or proposes possible readers or reviewers. Its members have a substantial academic background and are affiliated with leading institutions worldwide. They may be nominated by other Board members or by the journal’s Editorial Team. Regarding Dialogues, the Editorial Board can support the Editorial Team by suggesting content, identifying national and international academic events whose debates, presentations, or partial or total results can be published, acting as intermediaries in their consecution, and thinking of new possibilities to cover in this section.

Editorial guidelines

Content submission and editorial review

In general, the journal follows the subsequent guidelines. Additional and specific guidelines depending on content typology may be found below.

• The journal receives open topic contents on a permanent basis.
• For thematic issues, the journal will open calls for papers with particular deadlines and guidelines, which are announced here.
• The journal receives submissions through its editorial management platform OJS.
• Authors should review the Author Resources page to ensure that their proposal meets the requirements for submitting content to the journal.
• The contents submitted to the journal should not be simultaneously proposed for publication to another journal.

 Research articles, review articles, documents, debates, and interviews

• An internal journal committee evaluates the relevance of the submitted contents and verifies compliance with the journal’s editorial guidelines and editorial and ethical policies. Authors can find all this information in Author Resources.
• Submitted contents' originality is checked using Turnitin, a similarity and plagiarism detection tool.
• Authors receive confirmation of the editorial decision to publish, or not, their contribution within a maximum of four months.

Dialogues

• Proposals for this section are reviewed by an internal journal committee to determine their relevance.
• Contents must comply with the journal’s editorial guidelines and editorial and ethical policies. Authors may find all this information in Author Resources.
• Authors are informed within a maximum of one month whether their content will be published.

Peer review

Preselected research articles, documents, and debates undergo external double blind peer review.

Research articles, review articles, documents, and debates

• An internal journal committee pre-selects which submissions are to undergo peer review.
• The journal submits the pre-selected texts for double blind peer review. Reviewers are chosen based on their academic trajectory and the affinity of their specialty with the contents’ topic.
• A single rigorously argued negative review is sufficient ground for the journal to reject an article.
• Authors whose contents obtain favorable review results and are pre-approved for publication will receive both peers’ feedback, so that they can make the suggested modifications. Peer feedback may be accompanied by adjustment suggestions regarding structure issues from the Editorial Team.
• Authors will revise and modify their texts based on the peer and editorial feedback. They must send back the manuscript’s new version along with a brief explanation of how they responded to adjustment suggestions, and, in case of omitting any, they must justify their decision.
• The journal will define the publication of the content based on this new version.

Editorial process

Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the journal follows the guidelines below.

• During the editing and proofreading process, the journal consults with the authors to resolve issues or questions. The Editorial Team reserves the right to make minor corrections.
• The journal validates metadata translated versions and makes modifications when required.
• Authors authorize the journal to publish their contents and provide proof of this by signing the publication authorization form of Naturaleza y Sociedad. Desafíos Medioambientales.

Ethical policy

The journal has an ethical policy that outlines the responsibilities and conduct of editors, authors, and peer reviewers, which should be consulted here: https://revistas.uniandes.edu.co/index.php/nys/ethical-policies

* The journal implements three forms of scholarly research publication: just-approved, ahead-of-print, and regular issues. Just-approved articles are studies submitted to the journal that have undergone peer review and been approved for publication. For these cases, the journal releases the metadata of the contents (title, author/authors, abstract, and keywords). Ahead-of-print publications are articles that have already been peer-reviewed, are in their final version, and are published on the journal’s website ahead of the issue that will finally contain them. Lastly, there are articles published in a regular issue according to the periodicity of the journal.