The Faculty of Natural Sciences and Keele Institute for Innovation and Teaching Excellence have announced a new online, peer-reviewed student journal.

The Student Journal of Natural Sciences (SJNS) publishes articles, literature reviews, case studies, editorials, letters to the editors, and book reviews from any branch of the Natural Sciences.

The journal has been developed to support and develop scientific enquiry, critical thinking, creative activity and scholarship within both undergraduate and postgraduate students. It also aims to support staff by encouraging research-led teaching, acting as an avenue for the encouragement, promotion and generation of student-led research activities.

Dr Steven Rogers, Teaching Fellow in Geology at Keele University who has set up the journal explains:

“I first conceptualised this project after helping a group of students to write a journal article, and discovering that many of them had never considered publishing work before, or didn’t know that it was a possibility.

“I wanted to create a resource to help students firstly know that they can publish research, but also provide some help as to how to do it – and what better way to do this than go straight in at the source and create a space where students could do this, provided and supported locally.”

SJNS is a non-profit enterprise, with no submission or subscription fees. All content, once accepted for publication, is freely available online, and will then be coordinated into a volume of The Student Journal of Natural Sciences in September each year.

Dr Rogers continues:

“Publishing work has a multitude of benefits, it is an excellent way of learning new academic skills, it can help comprehension of subjects and gives students some additional opportunities to hone their writing and communication skills, and also provides them with a peer-reviewed publication to bolster their CV and job prospects.

“It is also a great form of scholarly training for PhD and early career scientists, giving individuals the opportunity to peer review and get involved with the editorial process. If any early career scientists would like to be involved as editors or peer reviewers, they can get in touch via sjns@keele.ac.uk.”

Journal engagement (submissions, peer reviewers and editors) are most welcome from outside of Keele University.

For more information, visit the SJNS website