Publishing in Historical Journals. Developments, barriers, and opportunities

Introduction and moderation: Florian Hoppe (Berlin)

Participants:
Johanna Gehmacher (Wien)
Kathrin Meißner (Berlin)
Paul Nolte (Berlin)
Andreas Fickers (Luxembourg)
Stefanie Middendorf (Jena)

As the leading media of their disciplines, journals reflect current developments, but also have the opportunity to actively shape them. They are particularly affected by the transformation processes and challenges brought about by new technical possibilities, an ever more closely networked scientific community and changing science policy framework conditions. Therefore, central questions of publishing in the 21st century are of great concern to editors, authors, editorial offices and publishers of historical journals.

The panel discussion will focus on the opportunities offered by these changes and contribute to the dialogue between authors on the one hand and journal managers on the other. To this end, we will address the most important issues surrounding publishing in historical periodicals, not least of which are dissemination and visibility. We will talk about the value of peer review, but also its limitations, discuss the trend towards internationalisation, which is often equated with publishing in English, discuss ways of transformation towards new digital publication formats such as Open Access, ask what models of fair funding might look like, and deal with the increasingly difficult task of profile building and quality assurance.

The aim of the panel discussion is to provide insight into the work of editorial offices and editorial boards, to create transparency about decision-making and publication processes, and to break down barriers, especially for young researchers. At the same time, structural deficits will also be addressed, such as the fact that the gender ratio in the authorship of many historical journals is anything but balanced. In this sense, the panel discussion is aimed not least at those colleagues and especially female colleagues who have not yet had the opportunity to publish in historical journals.