“When essential information is broadly shared on a large scale, it becomes a long lasting, unifying mechanism.”

— Howard T. Odum and Elisabeth C. Odum 

The American Ecological Engineering Society (AEES) started in 1999 with a committed cast of ecosystem-minded engineers and scientists. Since then, the Society has accomplished much, including sharing of knowledge through 22 annual conferences, engaging student leaders through design competitions, development of the Certified Ecological Designer (CED) program, and presentation of the prestigious Odum Award for Ecological Engineering Excellence. An aspirational goal in recent years was to develop a society-endorsed and run journal, focused on ecological engineering and design, highlighting the scientific and design works of engineers, scientists, and landscape experts.

After gaining input from AEES membership regarding organization and focus, the journal project was made official, and we were elected as Co-Editors in Chief to lead the next phase of this exciting effort: developing the Journal of Ecological Engineering Design (JEED). Critical contributors in the development of JEED include Dr. Eric Roy, Chair of the AEES JEED Committee; JEED Committee members; and Dr. Bryn Geffert and Ms. Aimee Diehl, of the University of Vermont Libraries. As detailed in our Aims and Scope, JEED aims to expand understanding of the science and design of ecosystem processes, functions, and services and amplify the role of design as scholarship in academic and professional communities. Our published content is rooted in the fundamentals of ecological engineering—the design of sustainable ecosystems that integrate human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both. (Odom and Odom 2006). Submitted papers can cover interdisciplinary topics related to ecosystems science, ecosystem engineering, and systems analysis, and should focus on informing ecological design.

JEED is free for readers and free for authors, with all content born-digital at pubpub.org, a hosted, no-cost, open-source content management system that promotes the collaborative creation and sharing of knowledge online. Use of the Creative Commons public copyright licensing system, specifically the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License, makes this type of content sharing possible.

Several characteristics make JEED special:

• JEED is your journal! The journal is endorsed and managed by AEES. AEES members elect the JEED Committee, which governs the journal and reports to the member-elected AEES Executive Committee. Editorial board nominations are solicited from AEES membership, with final appointments made by the JEED Committee and the AEES Executive Committee. We are excited to provide AEES members with distinctive service opportunities related to academic publishing to help empower and develop emerging leaders of our society.

• JEED has a unique and targeted aim of informing ecological engineering design. To promote inclusion of a wide range of ecological engineering topics, we define the design process broadly to include topics related to planning, technology, implementation, assessment, and communication.

• JEED is distinctive in that it is among the first peer-reviewed academic journals in our field to publish under a diamond open access model. This means JEED content is always freely available to readers via the internet, and authors do not pay any fees to publish. As an open access publication, JEED is part of the global movement to make scholarly research access fast, free, and equitable.

• JEED accepts a wide range of paper types, in addition to traditional, hypothesis-driven original research papers. Some examples include JEED-I: INSIGHTS, targeted research and science communications focused on compelling insights in the field; Research Case Studies, detailed, in-depth examinations of a specific case within a real-world context, typically focusing on before-and-after implementation of an ecological engineering design or process; and Applied Design Portfolios, which present original and innovative ecological designs of interest to practitioners and researchers with a visual emphasis on the design approach, process, and results.

• JEED has a transparent review policy. Reviewers are encouraged to sign their reviews and the reviews are published alongside the manuscript. We have a unique aspirational goal, with the implementation of Open Journal Systems, of using a double-blind peer review process. During the review process, not only will authors not know who the reviewers are, but the reviewers will not know who the authors are.

This year, as AEES celebrates our 23rd AEES Annual Conference in beautiful Tampa, Florida, we are pleased to announce the publication of JEED’s first paper! We encourage you to submit your research, whether presented at the conference or explored through other work, as a manuscript to JEED. Please spread the word to your non-AEES colleagues, as well: One does not need to be an AEES member to publish with us, though AEES always welcomes new members.

Again, thank you to all who have made it possible for our dream of an ecological design-focused, open access, AEES-endorsed journal to take flight. We call on the AEES membership to ensure JEED’s continued growth. Together, we can help JEED really spread its wings … by creating a long-lasting, broadly shared resource that unifies our ecological engineering community with exciting, cutting-edge papers informing ecological engineering design!

Sara McMillan and Marc Beutel
Co-Editors in Chief
Journal of Ecological Engineering Design

References

Odum HT, Odum EC. 2006. The Prosperous Way Down. Energy 31 (1): 21–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2004.05.012

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