About the Journal

Journal of Science of Science and Practice (JSSP - J. Sci. Sci. Pract.)

1. Preamble & Intellectual Vision

Journal of Science of Science and Practice (JSSP) is an international, peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal dedicated to the rigorous empirical and theoretical study of how scientific research is organized, conducted, evaluated, communicated, and governed.

For decades, the philosophical and methodological discourse surrounding science has been dominated by normative prescriptions: defining what constitutes "good science," outlining how theories ought to be tested, and dictating the methodological ideals researchers should follow. JSSP deliberately shifts the paradigm away from purely normative abstraction toward empirical, evidence-based description.

This journal is not a venue for speculative opinion pieces on "how to do good science." Instead, our foundational inquiry is driven by a singular, empirical question: “How does science actually work?”

Treating the entire research ecosystem—its institutions, incentives, human actors, and technological infrastructures—as an empirical object of investigation, the journal publishes rigorous research that investigates the structural and behavioral realities governing 21st-century knowledge production.

2. Illustrative Research Inquiries

To clarify its empirical orientation, JSSP welcomes studies that investigate the mechanics of the scientific system rather than offering abstract commentaries. Exemplary inquiries of interest to the journal include:

  • “Does paying peer reviewers improve review quality?” (Investigating the economic and behavioral levers of academic evaluation)
  • “How do promotion criteria affect researchers' willingness to conduct replication studies?” (Examining institutional incentives versus scientific self-correction)
  • “How does AI-assisted peer review alter editorial decision-making?” (Analyzing technological transformations in scholarly gatekeeping)
  • “Do national funding systems influence interdisciplinary collaboration?” (Mapping macro-level governance to micro-level research practices)
  • “What happens to research practices when universities change their assessment criteria?” (Evaluating organizational reform and behavioral adaptation)
  • “How does laboratory culture influence data-sharing behavior?” (Unpacking the sociology of everyday scientific workflows)

3. Core Research Questions

Driven by a commitment to rigorous metascience and the science of science, the journal invites contributions that address fundamental questions regarding the mechanics of science, including:

  • How do national funding architectures, organizational structures, and university environments shape the direction, velocity, and focus of scientific discovery?
  • What are the behavioral, cognitive, and systemic effects of academic incentives, career promotion criteria, and quantitative evaluation metrics on researchers' choices and publication strategies?
  • How can we empirically measure, validate, and improve the reliability, transparency, reproducibility, and openness of scientific findings across different academic disciplines?
  • In what ways do peer review mechanics, editorial decision-making models, and emerging artificial intelligence tools alter scholarly communication, quality control, and scientific consensus?
  • How do laboratory cultures, collaboration networks, data-sharing behaviors, and institutional hierarchies influence modern scientific workflows and research integrity?

4. Core Sections & Detailed Scope

The journal welcomes original research articles, methodological papers, empirical data notes, and analytical reviews across six interconnected domains:

I. Science of Science Systems

This section explores the macro-level architecture and governance of science. Topics include:

  • National and international research ecosystems, science policies, and geopolitics of science
  • The evolving role of universities, research institutes, and independent organizations
  • Funding systems, grant allocation mechanisms, and national priority-setting models
  • Research governance, structural inequalities, and systemic funding dynamics

II. Scientific Practice

Focusing on the meso- and micro-levels of daily research activity, this section investigates how science is executed on the ground. Topics include:

  • Research design, methodological choices, and standardization practices
  • Laboratory cultures, team dynamics, and cross-disciplinary collaboration patterns
  • Research workflows, data practices, documentation, and scientific communication
  • The sociology, anthropology, and ethnography of scientific inquiry

III. Evaluation & Peer Review

Dedicated to the mechanisms of quality control, peer judgment, and institutional accountability, this section emphasizes empirical studies of evaluation. Topics include:

  • Peer review mechanics, editorial decision-making, and grant review processes
  • Research assessment frameworks, bibliometrics, altmetrics, and their systemic consequences
  • Experimental and quasi-experimental studies on peer review and evaluation systems
  • The integration, bias, and impact of AI-assisted review and decision-making processes

IV. Incentives, Careers & Research Culture

This section addresses the human element of science—how researchers are trained, evaluated, rewarded, and socialized within academic labor markets. Topics include:

  • Academic incentives, tenure-track models, and institutional promotion criteria
  • Researcher career trajectories, precarity, mobility, and retention
  • Authorship attribution, credit systems, recognition models, and mentorship dynamics
  • Organizational cultures and their downstream effects on research conduct and mental health

V. Integrity, Openness & Reliability

Exploring the self-correction mechanisms of science and the structural threats to its validity, this section welcomes rigorous scrutiny of research quality. Topics include:

  • Reproducibility, replication studies, and structural reliability assessments across fields
  • Research misconduct, questionable research practices (QRPs), and publication ethics
  • Open science policies, preregistration frameworks, and open data-sharing ecosystems
  • Retraction dynamics, post-publication critique, and error correction mechanisms

VI. AI & the Transformation of Research

As artificial intelligence fundamentally reshapes the cognitive, operational, and publication foundations of science, this section investigates the ongoing technological transition. Topics include:

  • AI-assisted research methodologies, automated hypothesis generation, and machine discovery
  • Large Language Models (LLMs) in scholarly communication, writing, and peer review
  • Human-AI collaborative research teams and shifting paradigms of authorship and attribution
  • Research integrity, algorithmic bias, and epistemic reliability in the artificial intelligence era

5. Readership, Interdisciplinarity & Methodological Diversity

JSSP occupies a vital and distinct niche at the intersection of metascience, science and technology studies (STS), scientometrics, higher education policy, research ethics, information science, and the sociology of science.

The journal rejects methodological dogmatism and embraces pluralism. We actively encourage submissions from diverse scholarly traditions, including:

  • Quantitative approaches: Scientometrics, large-scale data science, network analysis, econometric modeling of research markets, and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) within publishing and peer review.
  • Qualitative and mixed approaches: Sociological ethnography of laboratories, historical case studies, institutional policy analysis, and comparative organizational research.

By bridging these perspectives, Journal of Science of Science and Practice (JSSP) aims to serve as the premier venue for scholars, university leaders, science administrators, and policy-makers seeking to understand and improve the future of scientific practice.