Avian Research is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles covering all aspects of ornithology, including, but not limited to:

• Conservation biology
• Behavioral ecology
• Evolutionary ecology
• Phylogenetics, systematics and genomics
• Biogeography
• Population and community ecology
• Migration and movement ecology
• Breeding and reproductive biology
• Physiological ecology
• New technology and methodology

Theoretical, applied and interdisciplinary papers are equally welcome. The journal prefers concise, well-written papers focusing on precisely framed questions or hypotheses. Purely observational or descriptive papers have a low chance of acceptance.

Avian Research mainly publishes research articles and reviews. Although the journal publishes other types like correspondences and short notes at times, direct submission of such types of manuscript is not advised.

The rigorous peer-review helps raise the academic level of the journal and has led the journal being indexed in such databases as SCIE (Science Citation Index Expanded), Scopus, DOAJ, Zoological Record, and CSCD (Chinese Science Citation Database).

As an open access journal, Avian Research benefits authors from publishing high quality contents on ScienceDirect that will be internationally accessible at no cost, quality peer-review, easy online submission and fast publication upon acceptance.

This is an open access journal: all articles will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download. To provide open access, this journal has an open access fee (also known as an Article Publishing Charge, APC) which needs to be paid by the authors or on their behalf e.g. by their research funder or institution. The APC for this journal is USD 1000, excluding taxes. At present, the APC of the journal is covered by the sponsors.

Access Rights
All articles published open access will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read, download, copy and distribute.

User Rights
Permitted third party reuse is defined by the following user license(s):

Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY):
Allows users to copy, to create extracts, abstracts and new works from the Article, to alter and revise the Article and to make commercial use of the Article (including reuse and/or resale of the Article by commercial entities), provided the user gives appropriate credit (with a link to the formal publication through the relevant DOI), provides a link to the license, indicates if changes were made and the licensor is not represented as endorsing the use made of the work. The full details of the license are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Author Rights
For open access publishing, this journal uses a licensing agreement. Authors will retain copyright alongside scholarly usage rights.

At present, the article-processing charge (APC) of the journal is covered by the sponsors, so authors do not need to pay an APC for articles accepted for publication in Avian Research.

All articles published in Avian Research are abstracted or indexed by:

BIOSIS Previews

Biological Abstracts

CSCD

Current Contents - Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

Essential Science Indicators

Science Citation Index Expanded

Scopus

Zoological Record

This journal adopts a single anonymized review process. The editor will have a pre-check on the manuscripts. Any submissions fail to meet the basic standard of the journal would be desk rejected for reasons like out of scope, ethic issues, high similarities, insufficient impact, below publication standards, etc. Papers deemed suitable are then sent to a minimum of two independent reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. Submissions contributed by the editors themselves, their colleagues or friends will be handled by other editors independently, following all of the journal's usual procedures. More information on types of peer review.

Editorial Independence

The following Statement of Principle speaks to a core value of intellectual freedom and independent editorial decisions. The statement is informed by the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Core Practices and the RELX policy on editorial standards. Of course, journal editors and publishers will always work together on the business of managing a journal, sharing duties and responsibilities - this is explored further in Elsevier's publishing ethics policies. 

Principle of Editorial Independence

• We believe strongly in ensuring that we keep the editorial decision-making processes of our publications completely separate from our commercial interests. 
• Safeguarding this editorial independence requires that all editorial decisions, or concerns or complaints about editorial decisions, are dealt with strictly within the editorial structures of a publication. 
• These structures typically include editors, editors-in-chief, editorial boards or review boards and ombudsmen, or analogous structures for the editorial governance of any given publication. The editorial office operates a rigorous peer review process. Generally, the final acceptance/rejection decision will be made by the editor-in-chief, or another academic editor approved by the editor-in-chief. If manuscripts are submitted by a journal editor, they will be assigned to and processed by other journal editors to avoid conflicts of interest.  
• It further requires that no one on the commercial or executive side of the business can get involved in, interfere with, or even comment on editorial decisions under any circumstances. 
• To deviate from the rigorous application of this principle in any individual situation would ultimately serve to undermine the integrity of the principle of editorial independence.

Articles in Avian Research should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors, [year]. Title. Avian Res, [volume number], [article number].

e.g. Briggs, K.B., Mainwaring, M.C., 2022. Habitat selection by nestbox-breeding birds and Roe Deer are incongruent within a heterogeneous woodland landscape. Avian Res. 13, 100012.

“13, 100012” refers to article number 100012 from Volume 13 of the journal.