Special Issues
Focused collections on questions that warrant sustained attention, proposed by researchers in the field and run to the journal's ordinary standards.
Proposals
Propose a Special Issue
The Journal of Women's Mental Health welcomes proposals for focused collections that address important questions in women's mental health. Researchers with relevant expertise are invited to review the proposal requirements below and contact the editorial office.
A collection works when it assembles evidence a reader could not easily assemble alone — a question where findings are scattered across psychiatry, obstetrics, health services and the social sciences, or a topic where the literature has outrun its own methods. It does not work as a container for whatever arrives.
Proposals are welcome across any of the six domains the aims and scope defines. Topics that have been proposed productively in this field include perinatal and reproductive mental health, mental health across the menopausal transition, trauma and gender-based violence, mental-health services and the treatment gap, recognition and diagnosis across gender, and mental health in later life.
The proposal
What a proposal should cover
- The question. What the collection is about, and why it needs assembling now rather than being left to ordinary submission.
- Scientific rationale. What is unresolved, and what a reader would be able to do after reading the collection that they cannot do now.
- Relationship to scope. Explain the collection’s substantive contribution to understanding or improving mental health in women or girls. Descriptive, policy, service, qualitative and methodological research can qualify; a comparison with men or a unique female effect is not required.
- Guest editors. Names, affiliations, ORCID iDs, and the expertise that qualifies each of them, with any interests declared up front.
- Article types. Which of the journal's types the collection expects, and roughly how many contributions.
- Timeline. A realistic opening date, closing date, and expected completion.
- Solicitation plan. How contributions will be invited, and how the collection will stay open to unsolicited submissions.
Send a proposal to the editorial office. Proposals are assessed by the journal's editors on the strength of the question and the fit with scope, and the decision is communicated with reasons.
Standards
A special issue is not an easier route
Everything that applies to an ordinary submission applies here, without exception.
- The same peer review
- All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review. Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
- The same decision criteria
- Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Being invited to a collection is not a decision on the manuscript.
- The same charge
- The article processing charge is the journal's ordinary charge, on the ordinary terms, stated on the article processing charges page.
- The same independence
- Editorial decisions are independent of fees, membership, editorial roles, and any optional author service. A collection does not shorten review and does not raise the chance of acceptance.
- If a collection does not fill
- Accepted articles are published in the ordinary issue sequence, on their own merits. Nothing is published because a collection needed filling.
Guest editors
What a guest editor does, and does not
- Shapes the collection
- Defines the question, invites contributions, and writes the editorial that introduces the assembled work.
- Handles manuscripts
- Selects reviewers and makes recommendations, on the journal's ordinary standards and with conflicts declared.
- Does not decide on their own work
- A guest editor who submits to their own collection has that manuscript handled independently by a journal editor, with no role in its editorial decision.
- Does not set terms
- Scope, review model, decision criteria and charges are the journal's, not the collection's.
Next
Related pages
- Aims and ScopeThe six domains a collection can sit in.
- Instructions for AuthorsPreparation requirements, which are the same for a collection.
- Editorial PoliciesIndependence, conflicts and integrity.
- Submit a ManuscriptThe approved submission routes.
Published research
Published collections and the journal record
Published research is available in the Archives. Consult the article and issue records for final citation details. The Current Issue presents the current published issue.
For a proposed thematic collection, use the proposal guidance and proposal submission checklist. A collection is announced only with its verified scope, guest editors and editorial arrangements.
The Journal of Women's Mental Health (JWMH) is published by Open Access Pub under CC BY 4.0. Contact the editorial office.