Focus and Scope

Ocean and Society is an innovative peer-reviewed open access journal focused on the societal interactions with marine and coastal environments.

As an interdisciplinary journal, Ocean and Society brings together relevant studies in the multiple areas of marine and maritime social sciences, promoting both theoretical and empirical studies whether these studies are done on a global, regional, or local level.

We challenge scholars and researchers with an interest on the social, economic, administrative, cultural, and/or political relationship between society and the sea to produce material that further advances a scholarly discussion around the dynamic relationships between people and the marine environment.

Section Policies

Editorial

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Article

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Book Review

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Commentary

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Review

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Short Note

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

Manuscripts will undergo a very stringent double-blind peer-review process, where the identities of authors, reviewers and editors remain undisclosed in order to guarantee the highest quality of the journal. All manuscripts (except for Editorials, Commentaries, and Book Reviews) will be sent out for review and at least two review reports per manuscript will be collected. All reviewers will be carefully selected by the journal’s Editors for each submitted manuscript and must fulfill the following criteria:

• Hold a PhD degree and/or be a recognized expert in the field;
• Not have co-authored publications with the author(s) for the last 5 years;
• Not be affiliated with the same institution as the author(s).

Even if, in principle, a double-blind peer-review system could allow this task to be performed by scholars who are acquainted with the authors, our Editorial Office still wishes reviews to be completed only by reviewers who do not have any recent professional contact with the authors in order to fully guarantee that there are no conflicts of interests and that reviews are indeed totally unbiased. Spontaneous applications from scholars to join the journal’s pool of reviewers will not be considered. All reviewers will be selected and invited by the Editorial Office to review manuscripts according to the field of expertise of the submissions received.

Reviewers will be asked to complete their review within three weeks, but are allowed to extend the review period in order to complete and submit their report. All relevant information for reviewers can be consulted in the Instructions for Reviewers.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

All of our journals are open access, that is, they can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. This means that not only researchers backed by well-funded institutions, but also policy-makers, NGOs, journalists, practitioners, students, and an interested public have free access to the research articles. This increases the exposure gained by new works and allows them to be disseminated to a much wider audience than is possible through traditional subscription journals.

Open access publication also helps correct the information bias towards the developed world, where institutions are much more likely to have the resources to subscribe to journals than elsewhere. Cogitatio Press is committed to the democratisation of knowledge, and open access means that any researcher from any institution, anywhere in the world is able to access the full extent of our publications with no subscription fees.

Furthermore, unlike traditional journals, Cogitatio Press does not assume copyright for articles published through open access. This means that the authors retain the copyright to their own works and are free to distribute them as they wish. Once again, this allows authors to maximise the audience their works are able to reach, rather than tying them to a limited audience of subscribers.

All manuscripts are published under a Creative Commons license: Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY).

Authors retain the copyrights of their published works and allow others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Authors are free to use, reuse and share their articles without any embargo period, provided that the journal is acknowledged as the original venue of publication. This freedom includes, for example, posting the article in an institutional repository or publishing it in a book.

Authors are also permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to, during, and after the submission process and publication of the article.

Archiving

This journal utilizes the Public Knowledge Project PLN system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Cogitatio Press is committed to enforcing the most stringent publication ethics, and all parties involved in the publishing process of the journal (authors, editors, reviewers and publisher) are expected to agree to the highest standards of ethical behavior.

Publisher’s Responsibilities

The publisher is committed to the highest ethical and transparent publishing principles, and guarantees full integrity and professionalism in all its editorial processes. Cogitatio Press endorses the Code of Conduct established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org) and has a zero tolerance policy regarding plagiarism, fraudulent publication and scientific misconduct. To verify the originality of all work published by Cogitatio Press, all submissions are screened using a plagiarism detection system before being sent out for peer-review. All cases of alleged unethical behavior are taken very seriously by the publisher and an investigation will be initiated in consultation with the authors, editors and/or peer-reviewers, as appropriate. In cases of proven misconduct the publisher, in collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to amend the situation, and is always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.

Editors’ responsibilities

The editor, an independent expert with a highly reputable academic record, is responsible for ensuring the quality of the material published in the journal and maintaining the integrity of its academic record. The editor shall rely solely on the quality and merit of the article as a criterion for publication, and act independently of the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. The editor also agrees not to disclose any information regarding submitted manuscripts to any other party or to use any part of the content on their own behalf.

Authors’ responsibilities

Authors are responsible for submitting original work for publication which has neither been previously published in English nor is under consideration elsewhere. The authors confirm that their work is the result of proper and ethical research conduct, that all data in articles is real and authentic, and that the use of any other authors’ work and/or words is duly cited or quoted. Authors shall guarantee that all those who have made significant contributions to the work are listed as co-authors, and to declare any potential acknowledgements and/or conflict of interests.

Reviewers’ responsibilities

Reviewers are responsible for evaluating manuscripts, assisting the editor in making editorial decisions and improving the quality of the articles published in the journal. Reviewers shall conduct their assessment in a timely and objective manner, avoiding any personal or unsupported criticisms. Reviewers agree not to disclose any information regarding the manuscript to any other party or to use any part of the content on their own behalf. If they wish to suggest other potential reviewers or to share the reviewing task with other colleagues they shall always inform the editor before making any contact with a third party. To guarantee a completely rigorous and unbiased review process, reviewers should not have any conflict of interests with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders.

Retraction Policy

Cogitatio Press values the integrity of scholarly research and is committed to ensuring that academic rigor is always achieved, and will investigate concerns raised by authors, readers, institutions, or academic editors in the event that said integrity is not being followed.

In line with standards developed by several library and scholarly bodies, and with the aim of guaranteeing the integrity of all articles rather than to punish the authors, articles may be retracted if:

• There is evidence of plagiarism.
• Major scientific errors occur, for example, evidence that the findings are unreliable, either through misconduct (e.g., fabrication or falsification of data) or honest error (e.g., experimental or serious methodological errors).
• Unethical research is conducted, for example, include material/data that the authors were not given consent to (re)publish.
• A third party’s intellectual property right is infringed.
• Redundant publication (submitting the same manuscript to multiple journals without disclosure) takes place.
• Inappropriate authorship (see COPE’s “What constitutes authorship?”) occurs.
• Content is defamatory.

With the scientific community in mind, and after discussing the matter with the authors, Cogitatio Press will adopt the following procedures in the event that an article is retracted:

• A retraction notice will appear on the article page, stating the reason(s) for the retraction. The title will read “[Retracted]: Title” and the retraction note will be placed right below.
• The article will remain unchanged except for a red watermark on the .pdf indicating that the article has been retracted. In the table of contents it will read “[Retracted]: Title”, with the authors’ names below.
• All parties involved, from the reviewers to the academic editors, will be notified of the retracted version.

Despite being a joint endeavor, if retraction is due to the actions of some, but not all, authors of a publication, the notice of retraction must clearly mention this.

Prolonged negotiations should not unreasonably delay retraction and the publisher should go ahead with retractions if consensus cannot be reached or in case the authors do not reply.

Authors may choose to request retraction of their own article, in which case they should email the journal.

Please note that Article Processing Charges (APCs) are not refundable if an article is retracted.

Publication Fees

Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) do not incur direct costs for articles and reviews under 8,500 words, or editorials, commentaries, short notes, and book reviews under 3,000 words. Otherwise, an article processing charge (APC) applies per accepted manuscript. 

As of 1 September 2025, the following APC will apply:

• Articles up to 8,500 words: EUR 1350 (plus VAT if applicable)
• Editorials, Commentaries, Short Notes, and Book Reviews up to 3,000 words: EUR 1350 (plus VAT if applicable)

An additional fee of 0,50 cents/word will be charged if a manuscript exceeds the established limits.

The word count consists of the following elements: title of the manuscript, abstract, keywords, main text, text in tables, acknowledgments, and references.

The following sections are excluded from the word count: Conflict of Interests, Funding, Data Availability, Supplementary File, and Bios up to 50 words.

The journal does not have any submission fees.

As an open access publisher, Cogitatio Press is committed to ensuring permanent and universal free access to all published articles, unlike closed-access journals which limit their readership to those able to pay subscription fees. This means that Cogitatio Press does not receive any income from either subscriptions or article views/downloads. As publishing is not without its costs, the journal needs to offset all production costs through article processing charges. These charges are used to finance the whole publication and archiving process, including peer review, editing, proof-reading and copy-editing, and hosting and maintenance of the journal archives. Without proper financing for such necessary expenses, the journal would be unable to provide the rigorous and professional service upon which we pride ourselves.

Here is a breakdown of how our APCs are used:

1. Journal Operations (journal support, submission system, platform development): 15%
2. Journal Publication (triaging, peer-review management, editorial assistance, copyediting, typesetting, proofreading, archiving): 52%
3. Marketing and Communication (PR & marketing activities): 10%
4. General (management, business costs, taxes): 8%
5. Discounts & Waivers: 10%
6. Surplus: 5%

Numerous universities and funding agencies allocate funds to cover article processing charges, and authors are advised to check with their departments and libraries if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Authors affiliated with institutions that have joined our Membership Program can publish their articles totally free of charge.

Authors who demonstrate financial need and cannot afford the article processing charge can apply for a waiver during the abstract submission procedure (waiver requests during or after peer-review will not be considered). Requests will be assessed on a case-by-case basis and may be granted in cases of genuine need. Due to the numerous costs associated with open access publishing, Cogitatio Press can only accept to process a limited number of waived submissions per issue.