Journal of Research Practice

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

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.