NJAS Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences

The NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, published since 1952, is the quarterly journal of the Royal Netherlands Society for Agricultural Sciences. NJAS aspires to be the main scientific platform for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research on complex and persistent problems in agricultural production, food and nutrition security and natural resource management. The societal and technical challenges in these domains require research integrating scientific disciplines and finding novel combinations of methodologies and conceptual frameworks. Moreover, the composite nature of these problems and challenges fits transdisciplinary research approaches embedded in constructive interactions with policy and practice and crossing the boundaries between science and society. Engaging with societal debate and creating decision space is an important task of research about the diverse impacts of novel agri-food technologies or policies. The international nature of food and nutrition security (e.g. global value chains, standardisation, trade), environmental problems (e.g. climate change or competing claims on natural resources), and risks related to agriculture (e.g. the spread of plant and animal diseases) challenges researchers to focus not only on lower levels of aggregation, but certainly to use interdisciplinary research to unravel linkages between scales or to analyse dynamics at higher levels of aggregation.

NJAS recognises that the widely acknowledged need for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, also increasingly expressed by policy makers and practitioners, needs a platform for creative researchers and out-of-the-box thinking in the domains of agriculture, food and environment. The journal aims to offer space for grounded, critical, and open discussions that advance the development and application of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research methodologies in the agricultural and life sciences. Moreover, NJAS aims to open discussions on the role of research and knowledge in the prototyping, designing, testing and analysing of different intervention and management strategies needed to make agriculture, food and nutrition security sustainable in an agronomic, environmental, political, social and economic sense.

NJAS especially encourages teams of (young) scientists to develop problem-oriented special issues, which demonstrate the value of crossing disciplinary boundaries and linking scientific inquiry to groups in the wider society.

The journal creates space for publishing papers in the following categories:

•Original research papers on:

• Presentations of empirical evidence obtained in interdisciplinary studies generating grounded understanding of complex and persistent problems and complex systems, with an emphasis on the research integrating natural and social sciences;

• Reports of insights and experiences generated in transdisciplinary studies informing reflections on how knowledge is applied and integrated in strategies and practices of different stakeholders acting in transformation processes in complex systems with multiple interests;

• Demonstrations of experimental study designs moving beyond conventional research approaches and reflecting critically on state-of-the-art methods, concepts, and theories, and the role of science;

• Assessments of innovative methodological approaches integrating scientific disciplines that are tailored to making complex and persistent problems and complex socio-technical realities researchable;

• Theoretical and conceptual review papers on:

• Novel combinations of theories or (new) concepts enriching or refining existing theories;

• Innovative concepts emerging in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research fields;

• Short opinion pieces about timely societal or scientific issues in the intertwined domains of agriculture, food and environment.

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