Renewal of Hypotheses’ Scientific Board – call for expressions of interest

OpenEdition’s blogging platform, Hypotheses, has published a call for expressions of interest for the renewal of its scientific board. This opportunity is open to any member of the humanities and social sciences scholarly community wishing to contribute to the operational success and development of Hypotheses and, more broadly speaking, help devise strategies for implementing new means of scholarly communication and meeting the challenges they pose.

Developed by OpenEdition, and boasting 8,000 blogs, over 38,000 users and over 12 million visitors in 2022, Hypotheses is currently the largest international scholarly blogging platform in the humanities and social sciences.

Whereas OpenEdition has a scientific board that oversees all the structure’s activities,

Hypotheses has its own scientific board, which follows the progress of the blogging platform more closely. It acts under the delegated authority of OpenEdition’s scientific board. It is supported by its foreign language counterparts, which, in turn, act under the delegated authority of Hypotheses’ scientific board.

Hypotheses’ scientific board works closely with the OpenEdition team in charge of developing the platform. The scientific board plays an advisory and strategic role.

What Hypotheses’ scientific board does

The board’s scope of action is as follows:

• Reviewing applications for blogs that explore the editorial and scientific scope of the Hypotheses platform
• Reviewing editorial projects relating to active blogs that explore the scope of the Hypotheses platform
• Examining specific issues related to the overall functioning of the Hypotheses platform
• Thinking about and suggesting “best practices” that could be applied to scholarly blogging, as well as advice on keeping a blog on Hypotheses (see the living guidelines drawn up by the members of Hypotheses’ scientific board).
• Thinking about and suggesting ideas for the editorial and scientific scope of the Hypotheses platform
• Overseeing events from a scholarly perspective, as was the case for the special event organized to celebrate Hypotheses’ 10th anniversary

Hypotheses’ scientific board is free to suggest additions to these roles.

In some exceptional cases, Hypotheses’ scientific board, with the help of the Hypotheses team, may call on external experts if expertise other than that provided by its own members is required.

How the board functions

The board’s official language is French. However, its members all understand written and spoken French and English. In some cases, members may speak in English if they are not proficient enough in French.

Members of Hypotheses’ scientific board undertake to free up time to regularly answer emails and attend board meetings – via video call at least. There are two meetings a year, with additional meetings scheduled if specific issues need to be discussed.

The board is made up of twenty members at most.

A term lasts three years and is renewable once.
For more information on the scope and operation of the Hypotheses’ scientific board, see the dedicated page on the Hypotheses portal.

How to apply

If you wish to become a member of Hypotheses’ scientific board, you need to submit a CV and cover letter in PDF format by email to hypotheses[at]openedition.org before 31 August 2024.

Applicants should be able to show that they are experienced in scholarly blogging and keep at least one research blog on Hypotheses, alone or as part of a team of authors.

Applications will be assessed and candidates selected by the outgoing members of Hypotheses’ scientific board, the director of OpenEdition, the deputy director in charge of OpenEdition’s publishing division, and the manager of research blogging at OpenEdition (representing the other members of this service).

Alongside the application assessment process itself and the need to find the right balance as regards the composition of the board, the main criteria for selecting candidates are as follows:

• Discipline
• Cultural area/speciality
• Professional geographical location
• Institution
• Status
• Blog(s) and experience in scholarly blogging
• Other specific experience

The jury will take gender parity into account when appointing the board.

Candidates will be notified in September 2024 of whether their application has been accepted or not.

The new Hypotheses’ scientific board will convene for the first time during autumn 2024. This meeting will mark the beginning of the new term of office for board members.

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