Supporting our early career researchers (ECRs) is an important goal for JNeurosci and the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) as a whole. SfN has a longstanding tradition in fostering the careers of ECRs and has launched a number of important initiatives. For example, the Neuroscience Scholars Program reflects a deep commitment to promote diversity in science by providing a training program for career advancement directed at underrepresented graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. The Early Career Policy Ambassadors Program provides opportunities to engage in public outreach and advocacy for neuroscience research. The Trainee Professional Development Award recognizes scientific merit and excellence in early career researchers, helping to support their participation in the SfN annual meeting. Lastly, Neuronline (https://neuronline.sfn.org/), a website for learning and discussion, provides a multitude of professional development resources, many of them directed specifically at ECRs.
The commitment of supporting our ECRs extends specifically to SfN's journals. At JNeurosci, we have implemented unique opportunities that serve our ECR community. One example is the Reviewer Mentor Program (https://www.jneurosci.org/rmp) that started in 2018. This initiative is directed at advanced graduate students and early postdoctoral researchers and is aimed at training the next generation of outstanding reviewers. The program provides one-on-one training on how to prepare a fair, balanced, and constructive review with the help of an experienced reviewer, who serves as mentor. Once the ECR graduates from the program, they enter the SfN journals reviewer pool, thereby bringing ECRs into the peer review process early in their careers and diversifying the reviewer pool. With the support of dedicated mentors, we have graduated 107 program participants since its inception, and the program continues to be popular.
Another opportunity is the Journal Club (JC) that started in 2006. JCs are written by graduate students and postdoctoral researchers and highlight research recently published in JNeurosci. The feature was developed to provide ECRs the opportunity to publish articles on their own, while simultaneously bringing important findings to the attention of a broader audience. JCs also provide an opportunity to develop skills in scientific writing, since JC authors are paired with a mentor that will help them to identify the most important results and implications of the highlighted article and to organize their thoughts into an easily accessible piece (Esch and Kastner, 2023). We are proud that JNeurosci has published close to 900 JCs since inception, written by a broad ECR community and helping to develop their careers.
At JNeurosci, we are taking our longstanding commitment to fostering career development of our ECRs now to the next level by introducing and welcoming our ECR Advisory Board (https://www.jneurosci.org/content/ecr-board). All three ECR stages of a scientist's career (graduate school, postdoctoral training, and early independent roles such as assistant professor) are characterized by great vulnerability. One area of vulnerability and pressure is scientific publishing. We are constituting the ECR Advisory Board to provide opportunities for ECRs to gain insights into the process of scientific publishing, particularly into peer review. At the same time, we hope to have the opportunity to learn from this group about their specific needs in scientific publishing and how JNeurosci can best support these. We hope that the ECR Advisory Board can help the Editorial Board shape the future of JNeurosci.
JNeurosci's ECR Advisory Board includes representation from all early career stages (advanced graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and assistant professors or early independent career scientists). Board members serve a 2 year term with opportunities to join meetings of the JNeurosci Editorial Board, discuss ideas with the Board in focused meetings, become involved in the peer review process, and advise JNeurosci's Editorial Board on journal initiatives. At the Neuroscience 2023 meeting, we constituted the inaugural ECR Advisory Board, which will be expanded during this year. Please read the editorial by ECR Advisory Board members on their vision for the Board and their activities thus far (Chen et al., 2024).
On behalf of JNeurosci's Editorial Board, I would like to welcome our inaugural ECR Advisory Board members and thank them wholeheartedly for their engagement and service. You will help us make JNeurosci an even better scientific communication outlet to serve the neuroscience community in the best possible ways. We all look forward to continued collaboration, particularly as we develop additional initiatives in the months to come. As always, if you have comments or thoughts, please feel free to contact me (kastner_eic{at}sfn.org).
In science,
Sabine