Is there a trend in your field that is missing in-depth reviews or where new concepts are being developed? Perhaps you are organising or have recently organised a symposium, the topic of which needs more thorough discussion – and a wider audience. 

Functional Ecology is currently seeking Special Feature proposals. Our Special Features consist of review and/or perspective articles, and don’t generally include primary research (although we will consider meta-analyses) as Special Features in Functional Ecology are synthetic and present a significant advance to the field by developing new concepts and/or highlighting important avenues for future research. 

We will be looking for proposals that: 

• Are in-scope for the journal, timely and of broad interest to the community 
• Concisely review and synthesize the current state of the literature, highlight recent advances, develop new concepts, and/or discuss important avenues of future research 
• Provide good coverage of the subject, containing between 5 and 10 proposed articles 
• Contain papers that are likely to have impact on the field in their own right, as well as being an integral part of the collection as a whole 
• Contain papers that are question/concept-focused, integrating across taxa, and not papers that are taxon-focused 
• Contain diverse authors to ensure a global perspective. We will not consider proposals that focus on the work of one or two prominent lab groups, and are not looking for papers that summarize the author’s own contributions to the field  

Proposals should briefly describe the collection overall, stating how it meets the above criteria and how it relates to similar collections that have been previously published (if any). Proposals should also list proposed titles and authors of the articles you envisage in the collection, along with a very brief description of the objectives of each paper (in particular, why the paper is timely, how it relates to other papers in the special feature, and how it contributes towards the broader objectives of the special feature). We do not expect you to have approached authors at this stage, but you are welcome to do so if you wish. 

Our special features receive additional promotion and are generally well read and well cited – special feature articles are often among our most highly cited in any year, and have historically been among the journal’s most influential papers. We also have dedicated editorial office staff that will support you throughout the process.  

To submit a proposal or to make an informal enquiry please contact Senior Assistant Editor Jennifer Meyer