Submission policy

The blog is open to anyone to make a submission. The aim is to stimulate debate and thus differences of opinion will be aired. However, all submissions must have some link to evidence from credible academic sources rather than assertion, and should be on substantive issues rather than personal criticism. They must also adhere to the following guidelines.

The editorial team welcome articles of 500-750 words (including any references) that are:

• short reports or summaries of research
• opinion pieces
• responses to policies
• experiences as an educational researcher
• experiences using research.

Prospective contributors should ensure that their contributions:

• are research informed
• avoid jargon and dense language
• do not include excessive references; contributors should use only enough references to support their case, and the number of references should be proportional to the length of the text
• address an international audience, and so do not assume readers’ familiarity with specific education systems or wider regional and/or national contexts
• provide links to sources where possible; if citations and references are included, these should follow American Psychological Association (APA) 7.0 style 
• use inclusive and non-derogatory language
• do not include obscene or rude content, or content that belittles or attacks persons or groups
• do not link to profane, obscene, rude, or illegal material or to sites that knowingly violate intellectual property rights.

If your blog post is based on an article accepted by or published in one the BERA journals, please let us know the journal name and article title (and article URL, if available) when you submit your blog post, so we can then include a link to your journal article in the published blog post. 

Use of images

You are encouraged to include an image to illustrate your blog post:

• The image should clearly reflect the content of the post and include a caption
• The maximum number of images permitted per blog post is three
• Images must be supplied as separate JPG or PNG files at a minimum resolution of 72 dpi at the size they should appear.

Image permissions

Prior to submission, you must obtain from the image copyright holder permission to reproduce the image on the BERA Blog. Please note that images generated using artificial intelligence (AI) are not necessarily free of copyright, as they may incorporate elements of, or be closely based on, copyrighted material. If any people are identifiable in the image, prior to submission you must seek their consent to publication, or the consent of their parent/guardian if they are younger than 18 years old. When you complete your blog submission form, please state clearly whether you have the required permissions and provide any credit lines that must appear alongside each image.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI)

If you have used AI in any way in the preparation of your blog post, please ensure you have read and complied with BERA’s AI statement. Any use of generative AI tools to support the creation of submissions to BERA Blog must be fully disclosed in the Blog submission form, including specifying the tool used and what it has been used for. It is critical that you fact check everything that AI suggests, including any data, references or information.

We also encourage contributors to adhere to the AI guidelines for contributors outlined by our sister publication, the EERA Blog.

How to contribute

Those submitting a blog post must complete all sections of the Blog submission form, which can be downloaded below. The form is designed to ensure the Blog editors and production team have all the information required to process your submission; please note we are unable to consider your post without a fully completed submission form. Please email your fully completed Blog submission form, together with a headshot photo of each author in jpg or png format, to blog@bera.ac.uk, making clear that your email contains a potential blog post. All file names should include the name(s) of the author(s). 

If your contribution is based around a particular news story or event, please make this clear when making your submission.

Please note that by submitting a BERA Blog post, prospective contributors agree to have their contact details shared with the editorial team. All contributors are also consenting to BERA storing any data relevant to their submission and for BERA to share their name, job title, affiliation, photograph, biography and social media handles (if provided) alongside their blog post on the BERA website. BERA’s full privacy policy is available here.

The editorial team will do all they can to publish blog entries as quickly as possible. The date of publication can be influenced by a number of factors, including the range of issues to be covered and the emergence of news items that may require immediate commentary. The editorial team must also ensure that each new blog post can attract as much visibility as possible on the BERA Blog homepage and via BERA’s communication channels before a further new post is uploaded. We therefore thank authors for their patience between the time they send in their contribution and its eventual publication. Please note that the volume of blog posts awaiting publication varies across the year. As a result, the timeline between submission and publication may increase at particularly busy times, for example, before and after the BERA Annual Conference in September. 

Submitting proposals for special issues or BERA Bites 

A special issue of the BERA Blog is a collection of between six and eight articles (including an editorial) on a particular theme. The special issue is led by a guest editor (or a team of guest editors), responsible for commissioning and collating the blog posts and writing the editorial. If you are interested in guest-editing a special issue of the BERA Blog, you will need to complete this proposal form and return it to blog@bera.ac.uk

BERA also invites applications from individuals and teams (of up to three people) seeking to guest edit a collection of BERA Bites. The BERA Bites series presents selected articles from the BERA Blog on key topics in education, presented in an easily printable and digestible format to serve as teaching and learning resources for students and professionals. If you are interested in collating and editing an issue of the BERA Bites, please complete this proposal form and return it to blog@bera.ac.uk

You do not need to be a member of BERA to apply for these opportunities.

Comments and responses

There is no direct comments function for blog posts, although we welcome constructive comments and feedback, which can be included in ‘response to’ submissions. The aim is to generate a dialogue between contributors and others. We operate a ‘notice and take down’ policy for articles. Illegal or offensive material will be removed. To complain about a post, please contact the Chief Executive Officer of BERA.

Copyright and attribution

Authors submitting to the BERA Blog are agreeing to license their blog post under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/