To celebrate 20 years since the launch of Journal of the Royal Society Interface, we are launching a Perspective competition. The winner will receive a prize of £1,000.
Over the last few decades, the traditional barriers between the scientific disciplines have become more fluid, as researchers have explored the value of working with others in different areas. This is particularly important in an increasingly globalised, complex world.
There are numerous advantages in utilising technology, mathematics, engineering, computer science and physics to explore the natural world and make progress in the biomedical sciences. For example, mathematical modelling can be used to help predict the transmission patterns of infectious diseases which has been particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Studying the flight dynamics of birds can be helpful when designing aircrafts.
Journal of the Royal Society Interface was launched in 2004 to provide a home for this type of cross-disciplinary research. At the time most journals focussed on a single scientific discipline such as biology or physics. Studies which combined biology with physics or mathematics did not often have a natural home and could be reviewed unfavourably as ‘too biological’ or ‘too mathematical’. In the past twenty years, Journal of the Royal Society Interface has been able to fill this gap by publishing thousands of high-quality, cutting-edge interdisciplinary articles. The range of topics that our articles span includes computational biology, synthetic biology, bioengineering, epidemiology, biomimetics and biomaterials to name just a few.
Perspective competition
November 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of J. R. Soc. Interface and to celebrate, we are launching a Perspective competition to invite our community to consider where this interdisciplinary field will be in another 20 years. Perspective articles are high profile pieces which provide an overview of the research, place it in context and consider future opportunities and challenges.
Some of the questions you may want to think about include:
- What are the cutting-edge areas of technology that may become even more important in science in the future?
- What areas of science could benefit from a more interdisciplinary approach?
- Which fields have rapidly developed over the past two decades? Why has this been the case?
- What are the barriers for encouraging interdisciplinary science? How can these be addressed?
- What are some opportunities and challenges that will affect our lives over the next two decades that may require cross-disciplinary expertise? These could include climate change, AI technology, scientific research culture, and globalisation.
Where do you think this field will be in twenty years’ time? Let us know by sending us your entry.
How to submit
Perspective manuscripts should be no more than 5,000 words in length and emailed to interface@royalsociety.org. All entries will be initially assessed by select members of the editorial board who will decide which ones should be invited for submission. These entries will then be subject to external peer review. Papers that pass peer review will be published online and collated in a dedicated twentieth anniversary collection. Authors will be able to decide whether or not they want to publish their piece open access. Any articles not published open access will be made ‘free to view’ for a limited period of time after publication. The overall winner will also receive a prize of £1,000. For full details, please take a look at our competition rules. The competition launches on 22 November 2024 and entries should be received by 31 March 2025.
Image: Tree frog (Litoria caerulea). Credit: iStock.com / jamcgraw.
