The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) now a criterion for EECERA Journal articles
Posted 15th May 2025
Beginning in May, all articles submitted to the EECERA journal will be required to include an SDG as a keyword and authors will need to make it apparent how their research meets with these goals.
The Sustainable Development Goals are a collection of seventeen interlinked objectives designed to serve as a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future”.
At the 2024 Conference, which focused on Developing Sustainable Early Childhood Education Systems, these pillars of sustainability, including Human and more than Human, Social, Economic and Environmental considerations, were acknowledged and discussed.
Prof Chris Pascal, EECERA President said: “Following the dialogue at the Conference, it was agreed that we should act to make the SDGs more visible and encourage their consideration in all aspects of our collective work within EECERA. The Board of Trustees agreed this should both form and inform all our work in the field of ECE far more visibly and sharply.”
A major mechanism for promoting the SDGs within EECERA is through EECERA publication platforms.
The change coincides with the publication of the latest issue of the EECERA Journal (33.3) which contains an editorial by John Siraj-Blatchford. In the editorial, he has built upon his ideas from his EECERA 2024 keynote.
From this current issue of EECER Journal, all authors will be required to acknowledge the SDGs on submission of their paper by identifying one or more of the 17 goals their work has addressed.
Prof Tony Bertram, EECERA Journal Editor said: “We felt this was an important change to make, not only to align our requirements with other early childhood journals, but to make a more visible commitment to sustainability.
We hope that this will promote thinking and actions to move forward the urgent sustainability challenges that we face and ensure this thinking permeates our field of study positively and actively.”
Prof Pascal added “It is important to us that our members and the wider ECEC community are aware of the ways we are looking to continue our support of achieving sustainability goals and the urgency with which we must examine them in the context of research, practice and policy.”
Looking toward the future, SDG keyword requirements will be implemented as an additional criterion for EECERA conference call for papers for 2026 or 2027.