SincereAcademy is a small initiative that tries to mediate between individual scholars, particularly in their early careers, and academic entities responsible for publications, employment, and funding. Our support entails opening a new channel for communication when the individual fails to receive a satisfying response (or any response) regarding the status of their publication/application. We offer no legal advice, simply an external and unbiased voice that insists on basic manners. We are fluent in procedures in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Our agenda is driven by a conviction in transparency and constructiveness in academic communication. We find that too many decisions are not communicated or conveyed through copied-pasted empty words. This impedes the development of academics who must know where they stand in the academic jungle. We require less hollow politeness and more information, even if this means (or perhaps, especially if this means) revealing factors that are beyond the sheer quality of people’s labor (e.g., issues pertaining to the candidate background, marketing pressures, topical preferences, etc.). While protocols for inclusion are becoming widespread in academic organizations, we are wary that they are often employed in a superficial manner, without inculcating necessary standards for communication that maintain an unbiased and accountable practice.
We wish to assist in the following cases (after the individual had tried to raise their concern in front of the relevant entity):
Journal submissions:
- Desk rejections three+ months after the submission date, without reasoning the decision.
- Waiting time of eight+ months for peer review, without any news from the editor during this period.
- Rejection despite positive peer review without sufficient explanation from the editor.
Book publications:
- Waiting time of three+ months for a response regarding a submitted book proposal.
- Waiting time of nine+ months for peer review of the manuscript (or of several full chapters) without any news from the press during this time.
- Rejection of the manuscript despite positive peer review without sufficient explanation from the press.
Funding applications
- Waiting time that exceeds the announced timeframe, without receiving any news about delays.
- Rejection despite positive peer review without sufficient explanation from the committee.
Job applications
- Waiting time that exceeds the announced timeframe, without receiving any news about delays.
- Rejection of a short-listed candidate, without any explanation of the decision by the committee or information about the hired candidate.
Please note what we are NOT doing:
- Helping in issues internal to academic groups or departments such as student-supervisor interaction or irresponsible conduct of a contributor to a group publication/application. While these issues may form critical obstacles for young academics’ careers, it would be over presumptuous for us to mediate from distance in such situations.
- Appealing decisions. Our focus is responsible communication, not thorough investigations of whether decisions are just.
- Shaming. We do not have a user on social media and, in general, we wish to settle problem as discretely as possible. After running this service for a while, we will consider publishing the unresolved cases on this website, thus allowing visitors to read about shared challenges, or about entities that are repeatedly mentioned notoriously.
Genesis
This project, after initial exchange with fellow colleagues, is currently ran by Gil Hizi, an anthropologist at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Like many of my colleagues, I am often astonished by the lack of transparency and accountability in responses I receive. My academic “highlight” in this regard, is a process of three years of “review” of my full monograph by two US academic presses (one after the other), where twice the book was frozen despite positive peer reviews. One of these presses has not communicated its decision to me to date.
Sincere Academy 