• Editorial
• Open Access

• Received: 30 December 2013
• Accepted: 30 December 2013
• Published: 12 February 2014

The editorial board of “Earth Perspectives – Transdisciplinarity Enabled” open access journal is pleased to introduce the first issue of this journal. Earth Perspectives was established to “focus on publishing and promoting holistic approaches to research, analysis and prediction of the Earth System, including the role of humans that either contribute to and/or are affected by the Earth System variability and changes.” The journal’s intent is to bring together rich scientific knowledge and experience residing within and across natural and social sciences as well as the humanities towards developing solutions and best practices that can be used in addressing contemporary global and regional development challenges and opportunities.

The need for science-based information for decision makers concerned with global and regional development has been increasing in recent years especially with respect to issues such as energy, health, food and water security. To develop the required information for addressing such needs, particularly when a combination of these issues influence decisions that require cooperation and coordination among a wide range of traditional science, humanity and engineering disciplines. Recognizing the urgency and timeliness for this information and to shorten the transition time between development and application of the resulting knowledge also requires greater engagement of stakeholders and end users in this process. Considering these needs and constraints, there has been a call to action by the international science, engineering and technology experts through international initiatives such as Future Earth: Research for Global Development and Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) for new and innovative ways to self-organizing of scientific disciplines by working closely with stakeholders in co-design and co-development of scientific studies, and the use of resulting information to meet the decision makers’ information needs. This new approach to science-based knowledge development, delivery and use is dubbed as “transdisciplinary” research. The Earth Perspectives open access journal has been established to promote such transdisciplinary approaches to scientific studies and publication of their findings, in a rapid and affordable manner, based on peer evaluation process.

The publisher and the editorial board of Earth Perspectives are working diligently and are committed to ensure fast turn-around time in review, selection and publication process. To make the journal affordable and more accessible to a wide range of scholars, especially early career scientists from developing regions and nations, the publisher has established a fixed publication fee to offset the publication and associated costs, with no restriction for access to published papers.

This first issue of journal includes five interdisciplinary papers selected based on individual submissions, and through peer evaluation process to ensure their relevance to the aim of this journal. They cover a diverse set of scientific topics including health, water, and governance, that support individually and collectively the journal’s objectives. We do hope the readers find this journal and its forthcoming papers informative and stimulating towards identifying and developing their own contribution for publication in Earth Perspectives, and/or encouraging such contributions by their peers and research network.

The editorial board has lined up an exciting set of papers for the next several issues of Earth Perspectives based on individual contributions and special collections of invited papers on a wide range of transdiciplinary topics. The editorial board is establishing a set of criteria in coordination with the publisher for selecting the best scientific paper(s) annually based on the extent of transdisciplinary theme covered, originality and uniqueness of topic presented, scientific appeal measured by citation index, and impacts of the study and its findings especially with respect to policy and practice. The recipient(s) of best paper(s) prizes will be recognized by a certificate of distinction, and waiver of publication fees for their future submissions to Earth Perspective and possibly other Springer open access journals.

We invite your contribution in form of editorial and opinion articles, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies, and/or scientific and technical papers based on review of past and present research towards identifying future research directions and priorities. We welcome Guest Editors who are interested and willing to coordinate publishing special collection of papers resulting from scientific conferences and workshops consistent with the aim of this journal. The Editorial Board welcomes your feedback on published papers as well as ideas for how to make this journal more effective in further developing and serving the international Earth System Science community.

Editorial Board

Earth Perspectives