The Australian Journal of Emergency Management, or AJEM, was first established in 1986 as part of the suite of education, research and training activities managed by the Australian Emergency Management Institute at Mt Macedon, Victoria. Over the intervening 38 years, AJEM has established itself as a premier source of knowledge, evidence and wisdom to advance the practice of emergency management, disaster resilience and disaster risk reduction in Australasia and worldwide.
AJEM is a hybrid scholarly and professional journal, arranged to provide peer-reviewed scholarly research alongside non-peer-reviewed articles that report on practices, projects, initiatives and incidents. Contemporary and significant issues are also explored critically through the Viewpoints forum, opinion pieces and special issues. As the emergency management sector faces increasingly complex, contingent and inter-connected natural hazard settings, transformative evidence-based practice is more important than ever.
At the core of AJEM is you, the readers. Subscriptions continue to grow and AJEM currently has an online subscription of approximately 4,500. Reader surveys conducted in 2007, 2015 and 2017 consistently show that readers from across the emergency management and disaster sector value AJEM as a reliable and rigorous source of knowledge, and many translate that knowledge into their practice.
The rigour of AJEM is predicated by the contributions of authors. Researchers, practitioners, experts, managers and others from a diverse range of sectors and disciplines have generously contributed their findings, views, news and observations in support of advancing the understanding and practice of emergency management.
The production of each issue of AJEM is also supported by peer-reviewers, the Managing Editor, the AJEM team at AIDR, the Editor-In-Chief, the Editorial Committee and the Editorial Advisory Board, with funding from the Australian Government National Emergency Management Agency.
AJEM would not persist without readers, authors, peer-reviewers, the support team and funding, and I sincerely thank all of these folk, past and present, for their valued contributions to AJEM.
AJEM is now accepting longer research papers
The word count for original research papers submitted to AJEM will increase to 8,000 words. Authors can continue to submit shorter 5,000 word articles.
Original, peer-reviewed research papers are a foundation of AJEM. The 2023 researcher survey found that many authors valued AJEM for the significant and unique reach that it has into the emergency management sector and the way that AJEM research evidence is used to inform practice. But the survey also highlighted limitations to publishing in AJEM, including article length and structure.
The expanded article length aligns with cognate scholarly journals in disaster science and improves capacity for authors to include the required markers of research scholarship including a justified knowledge gap, explanation of methodology, presentation of detailed findings, discussion of findings and the industry advances implied by the findings.
In response to other findings of the researcher survey, work is ongoing to influence journal metrics and review journal governance.
AJEM editorial policy and contributor guidelines have been revised
The editorial policy sets out the scope of the journal and includes revised policies on scope, permission to publish, authorship and reporting use of AI in research.
The contributor guidelines have also been revised to make it easier for authors to understand the types of articles published in AJEM and their different requirements.
Both policies are available at www.knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/australian-journal-of-emergency-management-contributors-guidelines/.
I look forward to your continued interest in and support of AJEM. There is a mountain of activity and attention across diverse areas and AJEM would be pleased to help you disseminate your findings. Please reach out to the AJEM team if you have any questions about submitting to the journal.