Core Principles
Integrating Knowledge
With 3 million scientific articles per annum, neither information nor access to information is a limiting factor so much as critical analysis of scientific content. By providing readers with clear access to relevant advances of disciplines other than their own, SAPIENS wishes to encourage thinking at a higher cognitive level and to promote prospective reflection.
Transdisciplinarity
Emerging global issues are best addressed from a plurality of perspectives and epistemologies. The natural, social and human sciences each have their own codified usage of words, criteria and methodologies ensuring depth and rigor. To facilitate communication between disciplines, Surveys and Perspectives will be supplemented with explicit methodological summaries for non-specialist readers. Compendiums of online definitions of key concepts will be collated on an ongoing basis.
Open Access
Open access is a publishing model where users are free to read, download, copy and distribute articles as long as authors retain control over the integrity of their work and are properly acknowledged and cited. For most Open Access publication models, expenses are partly recovered by charging authors a publication fee. SAPIENS will be sponsored by the Institut Veolia Environnement and the electronic version journal will be entirely free of charge for the scientific community, i.e. for both readers and authors. A fee-based cumulative print edition will complement the online Open Access journal.
Evaluation
All articles are submitted to rigorous, peer-review. The goals of our evaluation process are to enhance the quality of articles to their highest possible level while ensuring their accessibility to the widest possible audience. To create an environment conducive to interdisciplinary dialogue, authors and reviewers can opt for open, blind or double-blind review. We strive to develop an efficient system for fair and unbiased evaluation before and after publication (see Dynamic publication).
Dynamic Publication
SAPIENS online platform will give the scientific community the opportunity to comment on approved manuscripts, refining and extending knowledge via open discourse and intellectual cooperation. A paper that has been the subject of extensive comment can be updated permitting ongoing interactive synthesis. SAPIENS articles can be adapted.
