Dear IAVS members,

It is my great pleasure to announce the recipients of the 2025 Honorary Membership Award and Alexander von Humboldt medal. 

IAVS Honorary Membership has been awarded to Milan Chytrý (Masaryk University, Czech Republic).  The celebration of this award will take place at the 67th IAVS symposium later this year in Greeley, Colorado.

The Alexander von Humboldt medal has been awarded to Jens-Christian Svenning (Aarhus University, Denmark).  His celebration will take place at the 68th IAVS symposium in 2026 in Gijón, Spain.

I hope you will be able to meet the awardees and hear their inspiring lectures at the forthcoming IAVS symposia. 

With best regards,

Susan Wiser,

IAVS President

For further information click HERE.

We are pleased to announce the upcoming Special Collection on the vegetation of islands and archipelagos worldwide in IAVS’ gold open access journal Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS). According to the scope of VCS, contributions either need to develop or to apply a vegetation classification framework of any type. For example, this can be a phytosociological classification system, the International Vegetation Classification (IVC), habitat types, formations, or biomes. We envisage particularly the following types of contributions:

• Classification of selected vegetation types occurring on islands
• Vegetation maps of islands
• Synthetic overviews of all vegetation types of an island or archipelago
• Conservation assessment of vegetation types of an island or archipelago
• Quantifying vegetation change in terms of turnover of vegetation types

For further details please refer to the document available HERE.

Availability of Financial Support for Open Access Publishing in IAVS Journals

I am writing as Chair of the IAVS Publications Committee and on behalf of the IAVS Governing Board to make sure that you are aware of the financial support that may be available to assist you in publishing your work as an Open Access article in our IAVS-owned journals.  Open Access publication allows anyone in the world to read and download your paper, without paying a subscription or access fees.

As you know, IAVS owns three journals, the Journal of Vegetation Science (JVS), Applied Vegetation Science (AVS), and Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS).  Both JVS and AVS are published by John Wiley and Sons, Inc. (Wiley) and VCS is published by Pensoft Publishers (Pensoft). 

Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science

JVS and AVS are published under a hybrid model, where authors have the choice to either publish a traditional article, which is only accessible to readers with a personal or an institutional subscription, or to pay an Article Publication Charge (APC) and have their paper published Open Access.  Currently, the APC for JVS and AVS is $3,910 USD (approximately £3,090 GBP or €3,580 EUR).  In many cases, authors do not need to pay the APC themselves.  Wiley has negotiated many Transformational Agreements, under which all or part of the APC is paid by the author’s institution.  Some of these agreements are large-scale (e.g. Projekt DEAL, which covers more than 900 academic institutions in Germany), while others include smaller groups of institutions within particular countries.  In many cases, the participating institution will cover the entire APC. 

To date, Wiley has negotiated open access partnerships with over 2,200 institutions across 23 countries and new agreements are constantly being developed.  Up to date information about Transformational Agreements can be found at the following link:

https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/publishing/research-publishing/editors/wiley-s-transformational-agreements-a-summary

To find out if your institution will cover all or part of the APC for your proposed paper in JVS or AVS, please consult the information at this link:

https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/open-access/affiliation-policies-payments/institutional-funder-payments.html

If your institution is not part of a Transformational Agreement with Wiley, you may consider contacting your institution’s librarian or other relevant administrative officials to find out if an agreement is planned or is currently being negotiated.  If not, you might encourage your institution to explore participation in such an agreement with Wiley.

When applying for research funding, you may inquire whether your granting agency allows the costs of publishing, such as APCs, to be included in the grant budget.  Increasingly, granting agencies are encouraging or even requiring that all papers arising from funded research must be published Open Access. 

Vegetation Classification and Survey

VCS, which started in 2020, is published under a gold Open Access model. This means that all papers are published Open Access and readers do not have to pay subscriptions or access fees.  Information about the schedule of APCs for VCS can be found at this link:

https://vcs.pensoft.net/about#Article-Processing-Charges

IAVS Council had agreed to support VCS financially until 30 June, 2023.  For articles first-authored by an IAVS member submitted up until that date, IAVS paid the APC if the authors had no financial support from their institution or research grants to pay the APC.  From 1 July, 2023 a base APC of €1,100 EUR (approximately $1,200 USD or £950 GBP) will apply for a standard length article (11-20 pages) but IAVS members will receive a 10% discount.  Authors from low-income countries or who can demonstrate financial hardship will be eligible for discounts ranging from 40-80%.

If you intend to submit a paper to VCS, you should consider including APCs in the budget when applying for research funding.

If you have any questions about financial support for Open Access publishing in our journals, please contact me.

Best wishes,

Peter Minchin

IAVS Publications Committee Chair

News item also available at Vegsciblog: https://vegsciblog.org/2023/06/29/financial-support-for-oa-in-iavs-journals/

1. with credit card via https://www.iavs.org/donations/donate.asp?id=21837 or
2. with bank transfer to Internationale Vereniging voor Vegetatiekunde, BIC/Swift: SNS BNL 2A; IBAN: NL40 SNSB 0921 5290 23 by indicating "EDGG Donation Fund for Ukraine" in the subject line

Donations of any size are welcome. There is Grant Committee appointed by EDGG, which will assign small (500 EUR) grants for scientific projects proposed by Ukrainian applicants. On 10 August 2022, the Grant Committee could assign the first two such grants. For further information, see https://edgg.org/sites/default/files/page/Ukraine_donations.pdf

One of these actions is to support IAVS members from Ukraine forced to flee their country by establishing ways to link these vegetation scientists in need with those who could host them. One of our working groups – The Eurasian Dry Grassland Group has established a Google Groups mailing list where people can freely join and send mails offering help, etc.  The name of the group is EDGG supports Ukraine, and the address: edgg-supports-ukraine@googlegroups.com. Currently there are 151 members. The EDGG has agreed for this list to be used by any IAVS members as well, so that if any member has something to announce regarding help for Ukrainian scientists there is the possibility to do so via this list.

Another action approved by the IAVS Council in April was to create a special IAVS fund to support research by IAVS members remaining in Ukraine, with special emphasis on research on ecosystems affected by the war. This fund is now open for applications at https://www.iavs.org/page/UkrainianMembersResearchFund.

The IAVS Working Group EDGG has many members and activities in Ukraine. In the face of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, we thus have launched the website "EDGG supports Ukraine". There you find many ways to support Ukraine, you can offer your help and inform about support programs of your universities and countries, you can learn a lot about the wonderful nature of Ukraine before the war and you will find recent photos from our Ukrainian members. Moreover there are the links to EDGG's special Ukraine mailing list, Facebook and Twitter accounts via which you can remain informed.

We are thrilled to announce that Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS) was informed about its positive evaluation by the Web of Science on 9 April 2024. On 25 May 2024, VCS then was physically added to the Web of Science Core Edition, including the back issues since Volume 1 (2020).

For more details, please visit this page.

The Section Young Scientists of the International Association for Vegetation Science is launching a special grant program to assist its members in their career development.

The main aim of the grant is to stimulate and support the development of early-career researchers in vegetation science.

The awarded grants should help MSc and PhD students, as well as Postdocs with up to 2 years of working experience to advance their personal and professional development by, for example, attending training courses, workshops, field excursions, and short-term research stays in other institutions. You can also use it for purchasing material (reagents, equipment) that will directly help you and your career development (e.g. a computer for professional use or laboratory equipment). The grant, however, might not be used for participation in the IAVS symposia, as there is a specific grant for that purpose.

We explicitly support proposals with a clear focus on developing individual skills and competencies. Members of underrepresented groups are particularly encouraged to apply.

Click here to apply and learn more about this supporting grant.

The International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS), representing a global community of researchers and practitioners dedicated to advancing the understanding of vegetation and ecosystems, has held its 65th Annual Symposium this week at Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia. The participants had a chance to experience the unique plant assemblages in this region, including the greatest global diversity of eucalypt forests, temperate and subtropical rainforests. These forests provide habitat for many ancient lineages of flowering plants and songbirds as well as relict animal species, such as koala, rainforest frogs, platypus and echidnas. At the same time, during field visits, conference participants were shocked to see the recent degradation of this biodiversity hotspot by industrial logging, including areas in the proposed Great Koala National Park. The International Association for Vegetation Science praises the local authorities for the ambitious plan to establish the Great Koala National Park, but also calls on them to take immediate conservation measures to halt the destruction by ongoing industrial logging of the remaining ecologically fragile and globally significant biodiversity hotspots in New South Wales.

Press release from NSW government 12 September 2023.

Follow up from The Guardian 12 September 2023.

The IAVS is shocked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and empathises with all those affected by it. We strongly oppose the war against Ukraine started by the Russian President and his government. We condemn the barbaric crime of killing innocent people, including children, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, including scientific and educational institutions, as well as the unprecedented destruction of nature. We wish to express our solidarity with our colleagues, the vegetation scientists of Ukraine who are suffering the devastating impacts on their country and their lives. We also acknowledge our fellow scientists in Russia and Belarus who are speaking out against the invasion. We applaud those who courageously continue to dedicate themselves to peace, dialogue and open cooperation. 

The IAVS is actively exploring ways to help Ukrainian vegetation scientists. As an international society, we aim to contribute to a better world and to dedicate ourselves to the goals of peace, respect and liberty. 

We call for an urgent and peaceful end to this senseless war.