This is a guest blog post by Mahmoud Hassan, doctoral student of Epidemiology at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute. Mahmoud is the Editor in Chief of the new IJPH “Young Researcher Editorial” series, to which he introduces us below. You can contact him directly at mahmoud.hassan@swisstph.ch  

Young Researcher Editorial: Open Space for Young Researchers!

Doctoral studies are milestones in every scientist’s career, not only because of career advancement but, also because of building science philosophy, visions, and expertise. I had the passion to undertake research that would advance science and improve peoples’ lives. This indeed necessitates solid thinking of research methods and scientific writing. My objective was to be able to develop reproducible research outcomes into concrete manuscripts that get great acceptance by diverse scientific journals. Nevertheless, the day came and I had started my doctoral studies at the University of Basel. In the first semester I had a course in science writing and, honestly, I got to learn that science writing is a well-defined area with much developments being achieved over-time. During the course, an idea jumped into my mind, it might be a question in fact! Why don’t young researchers step forward and express their ideas, challenges, and views towards their research topics? An answer to this question was hand drafted proposal for an initiative that creates a student-edited journal to help to make this question answerable!

Sometimes, ideas evolve at the right time! This is what I have realized when I got to know that the International Journal of Public Health went miles in the same avenue, they suggested the same concept as part of their continuing innovation and vision of involving, training, and capacitating young researchers.

Dear colleagues, with great blessing and admiration to my colleagues a, I am introducing Young Research Editorial (YRE), a student-edited editorial series of the International Journal of Public Health (IJPH)- where young researchers will contribute editorials reflecting their personal experience and views in various public health domains. The authors are doctoral students and first-year post-docs from all over the world.

Young Researcher Editorial series is managed by editorial board formed of doctoral students from the Swiss School of Public Health + (SSPH+). Authors are encouraged to get in touch and propose editorials and we will work together to create a fantastic piece of work. We are looking forward to hosting your contributions in our pages!

* You can find detailed information about this new series by clicking here!