About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Tecnoscienza (TS) is a transdisciplinary and transnational journal in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), focusing on the nexus between science, technology, and society. Since 2010, the journal has provided a venue for scholars, policy makers, professionals, and citizens interested in understanding how and under which conditions scientific knowledge and technologies are co-produced and reproduced in conjunction with social, cultural, and political dynamics. The journal is published in English twice a year, following an open-access and double-blind peer-reviewed policy, with no charges or fees imposed. It is managed by an Editorial Board with the supervision of an International Advisory Board.

History of the Journal

Tecnoscienza was founded in 2010 by STS Italia, the Italian Society of Science and Technology Studies, acting as a publisher. Since April 2022, Tecnoscienza has been published by AlmaDL - University of Bologna Digital Library and promoted by the Dept. of Philosophy at the University of Bologna, in partnership with STS Italia.

Section Policies

Essays

The journal section Essays consists of original research articles (the article should be no longer than 8000 words, including references, notes, and related content). Please, read the author guidelines (PDF) before drafting and submitting an essay. Once the manuscript is submitted for publication as a research article in the form of an “essay”, it is first screened by the Editorial Board. The Editorial Board evaluates the manuscript’s relevance, consistency with the journal’s remit, aims, and mission as well as its compliance with research articles’ quality standards, research ethics, and integrity. As part of the initial quality assessment, each article undergoes plagiarism detection through iThenticate. Essays that pass this first assessment go through a double-blind peer review process involving 2 to 4 experts. Evaluation criteria include the manuscript’s relevance to journal topics, its innovativeness and originality for the current debates in STS and related fields (including philosophy and history of science; anthropology; gender and feminist studies; organisation studies; political ecology; cultural studies), its methodological adequacy, and the consistency between the theoretical approach and the analysis and discussion of the results. The Editorial Board ensures that the first phase of the peer-review process is carried out within 120 days from the submission.

For more information, please contact: redazione.tecnoscienza@gmail.com

Submissions welcome / Double-blind peer-reviewed

Crossing Boundaries (formerly “Conversations”)

The Crossing Boundaries section fosters interdisciplinary discussions among different authors on novel and relevant topics for STS and society at large. The section welcomes theoretical reflections or empirical contributions discussing a specific theme. The section consists of an introduction that briefly describes the debate and highlights its relevance to STS, and a maximum of 3 contributions of 5000 words each, including notes and references. The CB section overall should be no longer than 15000 words, including an introduction, references, and notes. Proposals are encouraged, and once accepted the section coordinators lead an internal blinded review process. The corresponding author is responsible for proposing the theme and could be joined by a maximum of 2 co-authors to introduce the discussion.

For more information, please contact: redazione.tecnoscienza@gmail.com

Submissions welcome / Single-blind peer review

Scenarios (Formerly “Cartographies”)

The Scenarios section consists of state-of-the-art review articles (6000–8000 words). Scenarios shall be manuscripts providing a comprehensive overview and discussion of debates relevant to STS. The internal peer-review process is conducted by the Editorial Board following a single-blind procedure.

For more information, please contact: redazione.tecnoscienza@gmail.com

Submissions welcome / Single-blind peer review

Book Reviews

In each issue, we publish between 4 and 8 book reviews (1000–2000 words, excluding references) of books published in English, Italian, or any other language, within the last three years. Tecnoscienza welcomes reviews that summarise, critically assess, and contextualise topical and important books in the field of STS or that could be brought into conversation with STS. Book reviews should be submitted to . They undergo an internal review process handled by the members of the book review section of the journal.

For more information, please contact: bookreview@tecnoscienza.net

Submissions welcome and by invitation / Single-blind peer review

Invited Lectures

Submission is by invitation from the Editorial Board of Tecnoscienza and/or Guest Editor(s) of a Special Issue. Distinguished STS scholars are invited to contribute with papers presenting perspectives and concepts relevant to the Special Issue and/or that challenge the STS debates more broadly.

For more information, please contact: redazione.tecnoscienza@gmail.com

Submissions by invitation only / Single-blind peer review

Special Issues

Special Issues must fall within the remit of the journal. Once the Special Issue proposal is approved by the Editorial Board, the call for papers is circulated and advertised on the journal’s website and through other suitable communication channels (e.g., mailing lists). Tecnoscienza has a two-steps acceptance procedure for contributions submitted for a Special Issue: the Editorial Board internally assesses the contributions based on their abstracts and then the original essays. Original essays are evaluated through an external double-blind peer-review, while the guest editors and members of the Editorial Board internally review the contributions to the other sections (i.e. Scenarios and Crossing Boundaries). Decisions on rejections and acceptances are made by the Guest Editors and Co-editors-in-chief, relying on the assessments provided by external reviewers.

The Co-editors-in-Chief together with the Editorial Board are responsible for the published content.

A special issue usually includes:

  • an introduction from the Guest Editors;
  • Invited Lectures by renowned scholars
  • between 4 and 6 peer-reviewed essays;
  • a contribution to the Scenarios section (presenting the state of the art, looking at the topic through a specific lens);
  • a contribution to the Crossing Boundaries section (multi-authored contributions on the topic, organised as debates).

If you want to submit a Proposal for a Special Issue, please contact redazione.tecnoscienza@gmail.com

Peer Review Process

Tecnoscienza is a double-blind peer-reviewed scientific journal with a rigorous editorial screening and assessment process comprising several stages. Tecnoscienza welcomes original STS-based research articles falling within the remit of the journal. The Co-editors-in-chief make decisions on submissions based on their scientific rigour, methodological consistency, and theoretical relevance. All editorial procedures of the journal strictly adhere to the code of ethics available at the following web link: AlmaDL Journals Code of Ethics. As part of the initial quality assessment, each article undergoes plagiarism detection through iThenticate. All authors and reviewers are expected to promptly reply to any editorial queries and comply with Tecnoscienza’s Code of Conduct for the Editorial Board Members. Should there be any concerns regarding the content of the correspondence or reviews, please bring them to the attention of the journal’s Editorial Board by emailing redazione.tecnoscienza@gmail.com

Stages of the Review Process

Manuscript submitted

The journal has received the submission and conducts an initial editorial assessment.

Assignment of an internal editor

The Co-editors-in-chief assign the paper to an internal editor among the members of the Editorial Board to handle the submission.

Under review

The assigned internal editor invites peer reviewers to anonymously assess the submission. The submitted manuscript undergoes a double-blind peer review process by a minimum of 2 up to 4 external reviewers, who are not part of the Editorial Board and with established expertise in the field of the paper.

Required reviews complete

All assigned reviewers have submitted their comments.

Decision in process

The assigned internal editor finalises a decision letter together with the Co-editors-in-chief.

The decision letter offers substantial motivation over the following assessment:
- Revise and Resubmit: usually requires reworking and rewriting of the paper;
- Major Revision: usually requires reworking and rewriting of some sections, along with a substantial editing of the paper;
- Minor Revision: can include many items within the paper that need to be revised, but typically not a major shift or addition to the paper.

Publication Frequency

Tecnoscienza is a biannual journal.

Open access policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

It releases its articles under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This license allows anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy the contributions. The works must be properly attributed to its author(s). It is not necessary to ask further permissions both to author(s) or journal board, although you are kindly requested to inform the journal for every reuse of the papers.

Authors who publish on this journal maintain the copyrights.

Licensing History

Past issues, from Vol. 1 No. 1 (2010): Tecnoscienza Nr. 1 to Vol. 13 No. 2 (2022): Tecnoscienza Nr. 26, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic License (full legal code), while at the time the copyright was transferred to the Journal.

Publication Fees

The journal has neither article processing charges nor submission processing fees.

Ethics

Tecnoscienza adopts the AlmaDL Journals Code of Ethics.

The code is inspired by the guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), in particular to the COPE Core Practices and its Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

All parties involved in the editorial process, editorial staff members, authors, reviewers must know and apply the ethical principles of that document.

Data Policy

When relevant, authors are encouraged to follow Open Science and FAIR principles by publishing the research data associated to their articles in trusted data repositories, according to the international best practices and data management guidelines.

Detailed information is reported in the AlmaDL Journals Data Policy.

Authors who are affiliated to the University of Bologna can publish their data in AMSActa, the institutional research data repository.

Indexing and abstracting

Tecnoscienza is rated as a Class A scientific journal by the Italian academic research evaluation agency (ANVUR), for the following scientific areas:

  • GSPS-05/A (Sociologia generale)

  • GSPS-06/A (Sociologia dei processi culturali e comunicativi)

  • GSPS-08/A (Sociologia dei processi economici, del lavoro)

  • GSPS-08/B (Sociologia dell’ambiente e del territorio)

  • SDEA-01/A (Scienze demoetnoantropologiche)

  • PHIL-02/A (Logica e Filosofia della Scienza)

  • PHIL-02/B (Storia della scienza e delle tecniche)

The Journal is indexed in the following databases and search engines:

  • ACNP – Italian Catalogue of Serials
  • BASE – Bielefield Academic Search Engine
  • DOAJ – Directory of Open Access Journals
  • ERIH PLUS – European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences
  • Google Scholar – Academic search engine
  • JournalTOCs – International aggregator of scientific articles TOCs
  • ROAD – Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources
  • SCOPUSTM – Comprehensive, multidisciplinary, trusted abstract and citation database
  • Ulrich’s – Global Serials Directory
  • Web of Science – Emerging Sources Citation Index
  • Worldcat – The world’s largest library catalog

Archiving Policy

As part of AlmaDL Journals, the Journal adopts a strategy to ensure long term preservation of the published content. Please see the archiving policy of the publishing service AlmaDL Journals.

Publisher

Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna
Alma Diamond – open scholarly communication

Via Zamboni 33,
40126 - Bologna (Italy)

Ownership

Dipartimento di Filosofia - FILO

Via Zamboni, 38
40126 - Bologna (Italy)

STS Italia – Società Italiana di Studi su Scienza e Tecnologia

Via Carducci 32,
20123 - Milano (Italy)
C.F. 92182800281