Cultures of Science
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Cultures of Science is an international journal that provides a platform for interdisciplinary research on all aspects of the intersections between culture and science.
It welcomes research articles, commentaries or essays, and book reviews with innovative ideas and shedding a fresh light on significant issues. Research articles report cutting-edge research developments and innovative ideas in related fields; commentaries provide scientific perspectives on emerging topics or social issues; book reviews evaluate and analyze the contexts, styles and merits of published works related to cultures of science.
The topics explored include but are not limited to: science communication, history of science, philosophy of science, sociology, social psychology, public science education, public understanding of science, science fiction, political science, indicators of science literacy, values and beliefs of the scientific community, comparative study of cultures of science, public attitudes towards a new scientific and technological phenomena.
Cultures of Science is published 4 times a year in March, June, September and December.
| Bernard Schiele | Université du Québec, Canada |
| Haojun Zheng | National Academy of Innovation Strategy, China |
| Zhiqiang Hu | University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China |
| Zhengfeng Li | Tsinghua University, China |
| Daya Zhou | National Academy of Innovation Strategy, China |
| Xuan Liu | National Academy of Innovation Strategy, China |
| Ji Zhao | National Academy of Innovation Strategy, China |
| Yanling Xu | National Academy of Innovation Strategy, China |
| Bankole Falade | Stellenbosch University, South Africa |
| James Dixon | Institute of Professional Editors, Australia |
| Qide Han | Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Association for Science and Technology, China |
| Hui Luo | China Association for Science and Technology, China |
| Martin Bauer | London School of Economics and Political Science, UK (2010-2015) |
| John Besley | Michigan State University, USA |
| Massimiano Bucchi | University of Trento, Italy |
| Rui Chen | China Association for Science and Technology, China |
| Michel Claessens | European Commission, Belgium |
| John Durant | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA |
| Zhe Guo | China Association for Science and Technology, China |
| Liuxiang Hao | University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China |
| Robert Iliffe | University of Oxford, UK |
| Lui Lam | San Jose State University, USA |
| Les Levidow | The Open University, UK |
| Jianjun Mei | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Gauhar Raza | National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources, India |
| Fujun Ren | National Academy of Innovation Strategy, China |
| Shukun Tang | University of Science and Technology of China, China |
| Hongwei Wang | Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China |
| Xiaoming Wang | Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, China |
| Masataka Watanabe | Tohoku University, Japan |
| Jiangyang Yuan | University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China |
| Li Zhang | University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China |
| Yandong Zhao | Renmin University of China, China |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Cultures of Science
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Table of Contents:
- Open Access
- Article Processing Charge (APC)
- What Do We Publish
3.1 Aims and Scope
3.2 Article Types
3.3 Writing Your Paper - Editorial Policies
4.1 Peer Review Policy
4.2 Authorship
4.3 Acknowledgements
4.4 Funding
4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
4.6 Research ethics and participant consent
4.7 Reporting Guidelines - Publishing Policies
5.1 Publication Ethics
5.2 Contributor’s Publishing Agreement - Preparing Your Manuscript
6.1 Formatting
6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
6.3 Supplemental material
6.4 Reference style and manuscript style
6.5 English language editing services - Submitting Your Manuscript
7.1 How to submit your manuscript
7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
7.3 ORCID
7.4 Information required for completing your submission
7.5 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
8.1 Sage Production
8.2 Online Publication
8.3 Promoting your article - Further Information
- Appealing the publication decision
This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Please read the guidelines below then visit the journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cul to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Cultures of Science will be reviewed. As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
Cultures of Science may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.
If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.
Cultures of Science is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of article processing charges which are paid by the funder, institution or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal.
For general information on open access at Sage please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.
2. Article Processing Charge (APC)
There are no publication fees to publish in Cultures of Science.
Before submitting your manuscript to Cultures of Science, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Research article: A research article should report latest research achievements in related fields. Manuscripts should not exceed 12,000 words, with abstract, key words and references. It’s an author-friendly benefit in terms of number of references.
Commentary or essay: A commentary or essay should discuss the scientific perspectives of emerging topics or social issues. Manuscripts should not exceed 2,000 words, or have no more than 10 references. Abstracts and key words are not necessary.
Book review: A book review talks about elements of cultures of science contained in published works. Manuscripts should not exceed 2000 words, or have no more than 10 references. Abstracts and key words are not necessary.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
3.3.1 Making your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online
Following a preliminary triage to eliminate submissions unsuitable for Cultures of Science, all papers are sent out for review. Please include a covering letter.
The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by two expert reviewers. Cultures of Science utilizes a single-blind peer review process in which the reviewer’s name and information is withheld from the author. Reviewers may at their own discretion opt to reveal their names to the author in their review but our standard policy practice is for their identities to remain concealed. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editors-in-Chief who then makes the final decision.
As part of the submission process you will be asked to provide the names of two peers who could be called upon to review your manuscript. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Please be aware of any conflicts of interest when recommending reviewers. Examples of conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) the below:
• The reviewer should have no prior knowledge of your submission
• The reviewer should not have recently collaborated with any of the authors
• Reviewer nominees from the same institution as any of the authors are not permitted
You will also be asked to nominate peers who you do not wish to review your manuscript (opposed reviewers).
Please note that the Editors are not obliged to invite/ reject any recommended/opposed reviewers to assess your manuscript.
The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor / Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
4.2 Authorship
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.
4.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
4.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Cultures of Science requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Cultures of Science encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
4.6 Research ethics and participant consent
If applicable, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent.
Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.
Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants
The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline.
Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
5.1.1 Plagiarism
Cultures of Science and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
5.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
5.2 Contributor’s Publishing Agreement
Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Cultures of Science publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page. Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request.
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines
Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
6.4 Reference Style and manuscript style
Cultures of Science adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
6.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
7.1 How to submit your manuscript
Cultures of Science is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cul to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
Please supply a title, short title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID.ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. We encourage all authors and co-authors to link their ORCIDs to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. We collect ORCID iDs during the manuscript submission process and your ORCID iD then becomes part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
7.4 Information required for completing your submission
Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
8. On acceptance and publication
If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement. Once your manuscript files have been checked for Sage Production, the corresponding author will be asked to pay the article processing charge (APC) via a payment link. Once the APC has been processed, your article will be prepared for publication and can appear online within an average of 30 days. Please note that no production work will occur on your paper until the APC has been received.
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit, or by email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to publication. With no page count constraints, your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the Cultures of Science editorial office as follows:
culturesofscience@cnais.org.cn
Tel.: +8610-68781601
10. Appealing the publication decision
Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.
If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com