1st Editorial Meeting – September 11, 2020

The committee responsible for Bras-J met online on Friday, September 11th, 2020 at 7 pm (Berlin time) in order to discuss the next steps to the first publication of the journal. The meeting was conducted by Thais Cavalcanti and Giovanna Imbernon was in charge of the minutes. Matheus Zago, Matheus Hebling, Cláudia Pires, Anna Bennech, Lucas Fraga, Eric Nogueira, and Guilherme Souza also attended the meeting.

The meeting started with a general discussion on the tasks that needed to be assigned based on the positions assigned to each member in the previous meeting on September 4, 2020.

The agenda to be discussed in this meeting was:

1. Section policies
   2. Authors’ guidelines and editorial policies
   3. Timetable
   4. Potential editorial council members
   5. First edition format
   6. General issues

BRaS-J guidelines

Journal organization

The first topic presented by Thaís Cavalcanti was about how the journal will be organized, i.e., which format BRaS-J will be published in: a. in numbers and having no specific theme for each one of them; or b. continuous and thematic publications. The board voted and approved unanimously the first one (a). Regarding this matter, Matheus Hebling pointed out that thematic publications usually tend to attract more readers. Lucas Fraga highlighted the fact that open calls for publications, not following a specific theme, would benefit certain areas of Human Sciences and Technology. Anna Bennech pointed out that it is important to have a theme at least for the first and second numbers in order to invite some specialists to publish on it and so the readers can know more about the journal.

Journal sections

The second topic in discussion was the definition of BRaS-J sections. The following sections were proposed by Thaís Cavalcanti: a. book reviews; b. articles; c. essays; and d. interviews. Book reviews and Articles were both approved unanimously, however, essays and interviews were rejected, being excluded from the journal scope once they are in the blog scope. In this regard, Matheus Zago pointed out that book reviews are an important part of the publication, but this is not the main objective, so the editorial board has to have this in mind when approving works in the future. Giovanna Imbernon also proposed that a list of books the committee is interested in receiving the reviews about would be a good option. After this discussion, the board voted for the number of reviews in each number of BRaS-J, all members voted for one book review per issue.

Number of articles per issue/number

The third topic in discussion was the number of articles to be published per number/issue. Anna Bennech highlighted that transdisciplinarity is in BRaS-J core mission, so the committee’s work has to be in accordance with that. After that being said, two options were assessed: a. one article per area plus one book review, or b. two articles per area plus one book review. Regarding the voting, there was a tie and this decision was postponed until the next meeting and the evaluation of Professor Doctor Thomas Kestler on the subject.

Assignment of tasks

The fourth matter being discussed discussion was the assignment of tasks based on each member’s function/ position. Thaís Cavalcanti presented the one-year schedule to the group. Also, it was decided that each Associate Editor will be in charge of their subject description, Anna Bennech will be in charge of the author’s guidelines, Matheus Zago of the submission guidelines and ethical policies, and Thaís Cavalcanti and Giovanna Imbernon in charge of the peer review guidelines.

Finally, the last topic discussed was the number of authors allowed per article published, as well as the minimum degree. The committee decided unanimously: the minimum degree required for main authors will be a Ph.D. degree, and for co-authors is to be enrolled at least in a master’s degree or a postgraduation program.

After all the aforementioned subjects being discussed the next meeting was scheduled for September 25.