In today’s ever-changing publishing landscape, one thing remains true for us at the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB), a small, self-publishing society: We want to retain our loyal author community while cultivating the next generation of early career plant biologists. Plus, it’s important to us that we provide opportunities for early career plant biologists to choose our journals to publish their most important research. Bottom line: We want researchers in ALL stages of their careers to choose our journals every time they submit an article.

The Challenge: How Do We Recruit Authors?

Loyalty from past authors at all career stages is crucial but recruiting early career professionals in our field to recognize ASPB’s journals as their first choice for publication is essential, too. For the future of our society and the good of our community, it’s imperative that we focus on BOTH kinds of researchers!

Clearly, the answer to retaining our loyal author base has been and always will be to continue to do what we do best: provide world class peer review, fast decisions and speedy publication turnaround times, and most importantly, the best customer service.

But how do we attract new authors who may never even have published before? *Insert thoughtful face emoji here* ASPB had a simple idea: What if we invited early career researchers to join our editorial boards? It could be a win-win situation for all involved.

Introducing: Assistant Features Editors (AFEs)

In January of 2018, what started as a “seed” (ha ha, we do represent plant biologists) of an idea became reality. The Plant Cell and Plant Physiology added the first AFEs to their editorial boards. AFEs receive vital experience and modest honorariums, and the boards benefit from new, fresh perspectives and ideas.

As the Editor-in-Chief of Plant Physiology, Mike Blatt, noted in an editorial in March of 2018: “This month we are delighted to introduce our new team of Associate Features Editors at Plant Physiology. These young scientists are keen to communicate what is at the forefront of global research in plants today and going forward in the future. The Associate Features Editors have taken their places on the journal editorial board with the start of this year.”  He went on to say that the AFEs would focus on “contributing commentaries, blog posts, podcasts, and videos to highlight developments of special interest both within and beyond the pages of Plant Physiology.”

The Plant Cell’s own Nancy A. Eckardt (Senior Features Editor), Mary Williams (Features Editor), and Sabeeha S. Merchant (Editor-in-Chief) wrote a January 2018 editorial to describe their vision of the role of an AFE: “These talented and energetic young scientists… are passionate about plant science and dedicated to communicating the importance and fascination of plant science to a wide audience.” The editorial also described the job of an AFE, which would be “to write articles, contribute blog posts, and create podcasts highlighting our authors and their work. These editors are helping us to highlight more research articles with In Brief summaries and are contributing interesting stories behind the science for our Medium publication, Plant Cell Extracts. With their help, we will also begin a series of profiles of our editorial board members.”

It didn’t take long before the AFEs were doing all of that, plus so much more!

ASPB Assistant Features Editors One Year Later

What started as a simple idea has evolved into a meaningful collaboration for the AFEs, their editorial board counterparts, and our publications staff.  AFEs are trusted editorial board members. 

When we need social media help, we ask our AFEs for input. For assistance in representing our publications department at our annual meeting, we turn to our AFEs. Some of our AFEs have even helped us to identify “methods experts,” critical to a robust pool of reviewers.

AFEs tell us the experience they get on the editorial board is incredibly helpful to them, too. They’re invited to all editorial board meetings, trainings, and functions. They’re welcome (and encouraged!) to speak up at any point in any board conversation. From working with more experienced board members, AFEs also get invaluable mentorship and learning opportunities.

AFEs serve 2-year terms, so the first cohort still have a year to go, but they’ve already proven themselves to be dedicated and hard-working contributors to the journals.  At ASPB, we hope to take their experiences and build on them for the future of the AFE program.

Do you have ideas about how to involve early career researchers in meaningful ways? Leave us a note in the comments!