Heather Stephens is a co-founding editor of Reaching Regions, an academic journal that launched this month in partnership with WVU, Iowa State University and the North American Regional Science Council.
Publications are required to use non-technical language aimed at non-academic audiences and the open access journal aims to distribute articles quickly to help ensure the timely delivery of research important to policy-making.
“One of the goals of the journal is to make regional economics and other related research more accessible to the policymakers and the public,” Stephens said. “Most academics publish their research in journal articles, yet most of those journals are not compatible with research dissemination.”
To address the needs of the academic audience producing the research, Reaching Regions will be peer-reviewed. Submissions should address topics related to North America and formats may include descriptive analyses, non-technical summaries of published academic research, case studies with broader implications, research syntheses, data visualizations and other items of interest to readers.
John Winters, professor of economics at Iowa State’s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, is the other co-founding editor. Kevin Kane of the Southern California Association of Governments, Amanda Weinstein of the Center on Rural Innovation, and Emily Wornell of the Center for Local and State Policy at Ball State University serve as co-editors.
Access Reaching Regions published by Iowa State University Digital Press.
For almost 60 years, the Regional Research Institute has conducted and promoted interdisciplinary research on social and economic issues that are best addressed at the regional level and that advances regional development policy that is matched to the regional context.