History. ICB has published small collections that did not originate with symposia in the past. In 2020, we published our first invited special issue, a collection of invited papers entitled "important conceptual and practical challenges in stress  research". ICB’s informal name for these collections is ‘bundles’. Since then, ICB has published one to three bundles per year.

Vision. ICB wants to provide more of these opportunities to scientists who may not necessarily be part of a symposium, so that we can continue to be more inclusive as a journal. The aim of these article collections is to provide opportunities to all members of the SICB community, and to uplift voices that  have been underrepresented. We encourage collections that communicate important advances, such as  cutting-edge research, new approaches, and best practices.

• promote a topic of your choice

  • build a strong portfolio of articles by using a wide range of article formats (see ICB website for Authors)

    • include article formats that lend themselves to meta analyses, science practice articles

    • include article formats that meet the needs of non-academic knowledge experts or contributors that do not typically publish in scholarly journals, such as Vignettes (see ICB website for Authors)

• opportunity to enhance your scholarly network

  • opportunity to involve colleagues at all career stages at many levels of engagement (contributors can act as author, co-organizer, guest editor, peer reviewer)

• expert support at every step from an experienced editorial team

  •  ICB provides a detailed and highly customizable playbook for organizers, including templates for communicating with contributors, and professional development workshops for contributors

  • ICB will handle the submission and peer review process, leveraging the expertise of our editorial board and our publisher Oxford University Press

• professional development

  • learn about organizing scholarly collaborations and editorial processes at the level engagement of your choice and on a timeline of your choice

    • engagement opportunities for scholars as authors, peer reviewers, and editors

  • optional custom workshops and mentoring for organizers, authors, editors, and peer reviewers on scholarly writing and publishing

    • see workshop archive on ICB author website, workshops on resource page for editorial reviewers

Decide the publication year that you aim for. This decision will lock in deadlines that you need to communicate to prospective authors. Authors typically expect 6 to 12 months to first submission and 2  to 3 months for revisions. 

A typical timeline is (see also example time line - its own section on this page)

• 18 months to submission (August to October 2025): ideation and planning

• 12 to 16 months to submission (October to December 2025): invitations

• 8 to 10 months to submission (January to February 2026): write papers

• 0 to 6 months to submission (Oct 2026 to April 2026): manuscript submission

• 2 to 6 months after submission (June 2026): publication

You need to recruit authors, and possibly also co-organizers, editorial reviewers, peer reviewers, and editors.  

• Authors contribute a manuscript.

• Co-organizers help manage the project.

• Editorial reviewers provide peer reviews for multiple manuscripts within your special issue.

• Peer reviewers provide a peer review for one of the manuscripts.

• Editors may be recruited from ICB's pool of assistant editors or may be guest editors recruited by you for your special issue.

We encourage you to invite a diverse range of contributors along multiple axes of diversity (such as  gender, ethnicity, career stage, type of institution, geographic location). Contributors can serve in a range of roles depending on their career stage, time commitment, and expertise.

Strategies to recruit contributors

• Use your professional network to identify prospective contributors. 

• Who is active in the topic area of your bundle? Are there colleagues at your university who  would like to contribute? 

• Has there been a recent or is there an upcoming workshop, symposium, or conference relevant  to your bundle whose participants might look for a way to publish their contributions? 

• Are there people you follow on any of your social media platforms who may like to contribute as  they’re in the same field? 

Tip

• Offer multiple options for contributing (author, peer reviewer, guest editor). Strongly encourage contributors to opt for authorship. And offer alternative ways to contribute (peer reviewer, editorial reviewer, guest editor) if a prospective contributor is unable to provide a manuscript but would like to be involved.

Dear Dr. XX,

I hope this email finds you well. I am organizing a special issue for Integrative & Comparative Biology (ICB) focused on ____________. ICB is interested in publishing a series of papers surrounding  _________that can provide exciting insights into biology. We welcome research with a strong ____________. ICB is a highly ranked Q1 journal, run by the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, a leading biological society, and published by Oxford University Press, the largest non-profit publishers of academic journals. 

 XXXX Personalized Statement XXXXX 

Would you be interested in contributing to this special issue? 

There are multiple ways to contribute: 1) serving as a guest editor, 2) contributing a manuscript, 3) serving as a peer reviewer for contributed articles, or 4) contribute to a collaborative article. If these contributions would be more than you can spare time for, or if you feel that your expertise does not align with this special issue, we also welcome your suggestions of colleagues or contacts who might be better suited. 

If you are considering contributing as an author, we welcome a wide range of manuscript types, including reviews, perspective, and research articles. We are happy to discuss ideas for collaborative articles. We also warmly welcome a joint contribution by a student in your lab with your guidance. 

OPTIONAL: Please note that we are also seeking multiple contributors for a so-called vignette article that highlights [current challenges and identifying new research avenues in our field] [current practices and providing guidelines for ... in our field]. For such a vignette, each author contributes just a few paragraphs. A vignette is an ideal format to share multiple perspectives and allows authors to contribute who would prefer not to write a full-length manuscript (see https://sites.google.com/sicb.org/authorguideforicb/article-types/vignette for a description and examples of previous vignettes).

ICB will publish 12-15 pages free. While the submissions will not be Open Access, all articles will be free to view one year after publication and remain free to read for the next 5 years; you may also choose Open Access and pay the associated fees. 

The deadline for submission is April 1st , _______; we anticipate publishing this collection of articles online in advance of the June ____ print issue. 

Please let me know if you are interested and feel free to reach out with any questions that you might have.  If you are interested, please email me a preliminary title or topic statement (your email________), the names of anticipated contributors to your manuscript, and the type of article that you intend to write (Perspective or original research) by July 16th, _________(year prior to publication) .

Thank you for considering this invitation.

Best, ______________

[your name and role]