Research on higher education is a very small area of research in Sweden and in the Nordic countries. Internationally, the research area is considerably larger and there are a number of journals that both maintain a very high scientific standard and have an established history. In light of this, Journal of Praxis in Higher Education (JPHE) is still a very new journal. Its goal is to contribute something new and over the past five years, it has reached more and more readers.

“JPHE is a young journal that lacks an established reputation, but at the same time, we believe we can contribute something unique. For example, we want researchers with interesting, new perspectives on praxis in academic work to find us as well as send in contributions that lead to new views of scientific knowledge in the field. We also want to influence and challenge today's view of academia and have therefore launched two Special Issues with a special focus on the themes of ‘Academic Citizenship’ and ‘What is sacred and profane’ in higher education,” explained Petra Angervall, Professor of Educational Work, who has been involved from the beginning and is the Editor-in-Chief.

Internationally ranked

As Petra Angervall described about the journal’s origins, “We worked together on all elements of creating the journal: layout, launch, inviting article contributions, administration, website, reviewers, editing, and publishing. For our first issue in 2019, the group was expanded by including two researchers from the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, who helped manage the review process and publish our very first issue.”

Today, the editorial staff consists of a team of 18 people from eight different countries. The editorial team consists of Petra Angervall as Editor-in-Chief, four copy editors, three administrative managers, and eleven senior editors.

“We have gone from publishing one issue per year to up to about three issues currently. The journal is a not-for-profit publication. JPHE currently has a stable number of incoming manuscripts and a regular publication of issues. We are also affiliated with Crossref.org, an organisation that works to make research easy to find, cite, link and assess, and additionally, we are internationally ranked,” said Petra Angervall.

“We want to contribute to a broad dialogue between different stakeholders both nationally and internationally, even outside academia. Therefore, it is important for us to invite senior editors from other areas than universities and colleges, from different parts of the world, and with different academic roles. We want a team for the journal that is broad and inclusive, but also scientifically interesting and challenging. The goal is to increase the dissemination of our issues and publications, while those of us who currently work in Borås also see the importance of JPHE becoming an important part of the university's internal quality assurance work to a greater extent than before.”

“We are currently putting together a fifth anniversary issue. The issue, which comes out on 18 December, contains several interesting analyses of what we have achieved in recent years, with several internationally renowned researchers who have been invited to review our issues. We will also present several interesting new research contributions, as well as an interview with Hannu Heikkinen, Professor at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, who talks about the concept of ‘planetary praxis in higher education’.”

“We have high hopes for the journal and hope it will develop and really show both research worldwide and in the journal sphere that while we are small, basically unfunded, and in many ways vulnerable because we dare to do things differently, we can still contribute something important,” concluded Petra Angervall.

Link to the online version of the journal Journal of Praxis in Higher Education

Number of subscribers: 580

Number of readers per month: 80–100, of which about 50 readers download various articles

Petra Angervall

Researcher profiles in the anniversary issue:

Hannu Heikkinen, Professor, Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä

Kathleen Mahon, Senior Lecturer – Higher Education Innovation at the Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation, The University of Queensland, Australia

David Hoffman, Senior Researcher, Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä

Maresi Nerad, professor emerita, College of Education, The University of Washington, USA

Dennis Beach, Professor, Department of Education and Special Education, University of Gothenburg

Marko Turk, Senior Researcher, Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Croatia

(These last three have contributed to the introduction to the jubilee publication).