Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales
On this page:
- About the Journal
- Subscriptions
- Archived Journals
- History of the Journal and Proceedings
- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
About the Journal
The Society’s journal is one of the oldest peer-reviewed publications in the Southern Hemisphere. Much innovative research of the 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g. Lawrence Hargrave's work on flight) was first brought to the attention of the scientific world through the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales. In the last few decades specialist journals have become preferred for highly technical work but the Journal and Proceedings remains an important publication for multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary work.
The Journal and Proceedings is exchanged with many institutions worldwide. Currently issues are usually published around June and December each year, although a single December issue appeared in 2016.
The Society welcomes authors to publish their research or reviews in JProcRSNSW. Abstracts of doctoral theses are also considered by the editorial board and are welcome.
Subscriptions
Access to electronic copies of the Journal is free via this link.
If you would like to subscribe to a printed copy of the Journal (full-colour, acid-free paper), it can be purchased in the Society's online shop. Orders must be received by 30 April in order to receive the two issues for that calendar year.
The subscription rates for 2022 are:
| Members of the Society | $60 per year |
| Non-members | $150 per year |
These rates include airmail postage.
Archived Journals
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) in the USA has scanned all but one of the Journal's issues from 1862 to 2000 and made them available via this direct link [for 1862-1865, use the link to the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales]. The journals have been scanned via optical character recognition (OCR) allowing text searches to be made, as well as providing a PDF file for each volume of the Journal. The Society gratefully acknowledges the contribution made by the University of NSW and, in particular, the Smithsonian Libraries in digitising these.
All articles since 1856 have now been indexed and made available via links to the BHL archive and the National Library of Australia's Trove database of Australian publications since 1788. See the Archive contents here.
History of the Journal and Proceedings
In 1821 each member of the Society furnished the secretary with an alphabetical catalogue of the books in his (no women members then) private library and these were available on loan to other members. At that stage the Society had no journal but some of the papers read were included in a book edited by Barron Field, one of its members, and published in London 1825.
Similarly, the Philosophical Society of 1850 had no journal, but its proceedings were reported quite extensively in the local press. In 1857 selected papers and abstracts were printed in The Sydney Magazine of Science and Art, a private commercial venture, but the arrangement lasted for only a year or two, and recourse was had again to the public press. In 1866 appeared the Society's own publication, the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales, 1862-1865. The Royal Society of New South Wales initiated the yearly publication of the Transactions in 1867, and ten years later the present title Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales was adopted.
Editorial Board
The Society publishes one of the oldest peer-reviewed journals in the Southern Hemisphere, the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales. The journal is edited to high academic standards, and attracts publications predominantly in the sciences but also across all other disciplines of interest to the Society's readership.
The members of the editorial board are:
Em. Prof. Robert Marks BE ME(Melb) MS PhD (Stanf) FRSN—Honorary Editor
Prof. Richard Banati FRSN MD PhD
Prof. Michael Burton FRSN MA MMaths (Cantab) PhD (Edinb) FASA FAIP
Dr Len Fisher OAM FRSN BA BSc(Hons) MA MSc PhD (UNSW) FRSC FRACI FInstP FLS
Dr. Donald Hector AM FRSN BE(Chem) PhD(Syd) FIChemE FIEAust FAICD
Em. Prof. David Brynn Hibbert AM FRSN BSc PhD(Lond) CChem FRSC FRACI
Dr. Nick Lomb BSc PhD(Syd)
Dr Jessica Milner Davis FRSN PhD
Prof. Timothy Schmidt FRSN BSc (Syd) PhD (Cantab)
The Honorary Editor may be contacted directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Information for Authors
Papers (other than those specially invited by the Editorial Board) will only be considered if the content is either substantially new material that has not been published previously, or is a review of a major research programme. In the case of papers presenting new research, the author must certify that the material has not been submitted concurrently elsewhere nor is likely to be published elsewhere in substantially the same form. In the case of papers reviewing a major research programme, the author must certify that the material has not been published substantially in the same form elsewhere and that permission for the Society to publish has been granted by all copyright holders. Letters to the Editor and short notes may also be submitted for publication.
Manuscripts are only accepted in digital format and should be emailed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
If the file is too large to email, please contact the editor, at the above email address.
Manuscripts will be reviewed by the Editor, in consultation with the Editorial Board (above), to decide whether the paper will be considered for publication in the Journal. Manuscripts are subjected to peer review by at least one independent reviewer. In the event of initial rejection, manuscripts may be sent to other reviewers.
The Society does not require authors to transfer the copyright of their manuscript to the Society but authors are required to grant the Society an unrestricted licence to reproduce in any form manuscripts accepted for publication in the Journal and Proceedings. Enquiries relating to copyright or reproduction of an article should be directed to the author.
Issues are scheduled to be published in June and December each year. An electronic version is posted to the web site and this is the formal publication date. The printed version is published 4-6 weeks after the electronic version is published.
Key dates for publication in Part 1
|
28 February |
March - May |
June |
July - August |
|
Latest date for submission of papers (unless agreed with the Editor) |
Review and editing |
Typesetting and publication in electronic form |
Printing & posting |
Key dates for publication in Part 2
|
31 August |
September - November |
December |
January - February |
|
Latest date for submission of papers (unless agreed with the Editor) |
Review and editing |
Typesetting and publication in electronic form |
Printing & posting |
Style guide and templates
Authors intending to submit papers for publication in the Journal and Proceedings are referred to the style guide that outlines formatting and submission requirements. Authors who use Thomson Reuters' EndNote bibliographic software may download an EndNote style template that is specifically designed for the Journal and Proceedings. Two Microsoft Word templates are available for download, one for refereed papers, the other for thesis abstracts. Papers should be submitted using these templates.
Papers for consideration are only accepted electronically. Paper manuscripts will not be accepted and will be returned unread to the corresponding author.
