Editorial: Contemporary social science open access (CSS open)

Welcome to this fifth issue of Volume 17, which is the third time we have run CSS Open, the completely open access (OA) issue of Contemporary Social Science. CSS Open has been an exciting development for the journal, both in terms of enabling more OA publishing and offering a ‘non-themed’ issue in addition to our usual special issues, made up of original research from disciplines across the social sciences. These OA online-only issues, published from 2020 onwards, have been developed in recognition of the shift taking place in publishing towards work which is open, accessible, impactful and inclusive. Many of these CSS Open papers have been widely read and highly cited, such as Breakwell (2020) on ‘Mistrust, uncertainty and health risks’, Van Der Zwet et al. (2020) on ‘Brexit, Europe and Othering’, Connolly et al. (2021) on ‘Governing ‘levelling-up’ in the UK: challenges and prospects’ and Grant and Kara (2021) on ‘Considering the Autistic advantage in qualitative research: the strengths of Autistic researchers’ amongst many others (with apologies to many other impactful CSS Open papers). All new non-themed OA articles are immediately added to a dedicated online-only issue, CSS Open, which enables all readers, everywhere, to find the latest open access articles in one place. Contributions to CSS Open are welcome in any appropriate form, including critical essays, reviews of significant topics, qualitative or quantitative empirical studies, including case studies and large-scale statistical analyses. Well documented examples of social science in action, composite reviews of sets of books and other publications are also welcome. Papers will normally be in the 5,000 to 7,000 word range.