Dear Spokes readers,

Has Spokes kept you company during the past months? Has it been of inspiration for your work or of help to reflect on the future? If it managed to contribute even a bit of this, we owe it to the insights and practice that authors shared with all of us, whether they were on equity and social justice, on misinformation, on visitor experiences and the future of technology or on Covid-19 itself and the ways for our organisations to recover and rebuild.

Let’s continue the work along these lines, aiming for a Spokes that represents the voice of our community, contributing to sharing experience and expertise, to professional development, to future strategy. We can do this only with the input and experience that you bring to the field through articles submitted for publication, or ideas that help us choose topics, identify authors, collect case studies. 

We want to have a true picture of what matters to you

The time has come again for the Spokes Editorial Committee to plan the issues of the upcoming twelve months and your help is precious. We want to have a true picture of what matters to you and the topics that you would like to read, reflect upon, exploit in 2021.

The call for you to submit your proposals is open until 31 August 2020.

Spokes includes different types of articles for you to write, depending on your priorities, expertise - or workload. 

• Are you sitting on idea or experience that you feel ready to share? Do you want to shake your peers or challenge them? In that case, our In Depth article would be for you.
• Do you want to collect the voice of diverse practitioners on a topic - or maybe you want to share the workload of writing with other people? Then you could feature in one of our Lookouts. This month’s Lookout from Barbara Teixeira was a pitch submitted to us during the call for articles in 2019.
• If your article would better suit a more visual tone and is adapted to using images, then check out our Portfolios.

But if you want to suggest topics but you don’t feel like writing yourself, if you feel there is a gap in the debate in the science engagement field, then submit a pitch with the idea, possible authors or interviewees and we can work on it together. The committee would happily bring together their expertise to turn your idea into a piece to read in Spokes.

The committee will be meeting digitally in September to set the editorial plan for Spokes in 2021 and it will be then that we will take your suggestions and proposals into account. These do not have to be fully written; all we require is a good outline of what your article would cover. We are there to help so that Spokes achieves the highest possible quality content and to give all authors and interviewers time and suggestions to write and perfect their articles. Our committee meetings are always an interactive, visual affair and even though it will be held digitally this year, the way in which we plan and decide on Spokes for 2021 will be no different. We dedicate time and expertise into looking into each proposal, explore topics and genres that often push and challenge us and consider potential authors. We even ensure that each author is given a ‘guardian angel’ to help with deadlines. Everyone who participates in a Spokes article gives us their valuable time and expertise and we are incredibly grateful for their input.

So, do go ahead with sending your idea! If you complete the form and submit it before 31 August the committee can discuss it in September’s meeting. 

If you don’t have the time to write a proposal before the deadline, the call does remain open all year round and will be relaunched regularly, so do contact the Ecsite Office with a proposal when you are ready. Have a look at the guide for contributing to Spokes for more details. 

We are also looking for three new members to join the Spokes Editorial Committee

In addition to our call for articles, we are also looking for three new members to join the Spokes Editorial Committee. The Committee aims to keep a balance of expertise, geographic origin and gender as well as the types & sizes of organisations. While writing articles is not an obligation for committee members, it would be an advantage if there was a strong writer among our new recruits. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, the deadline is a little longer (9 September) and you can find out more information in our news article on the website.

We look forward to receiving your proposals for both articles and new members, in the effort to make Spokes stronger and even more inspiring for the network as a whole!