My vision for the journal Biosemiotics

As was made public at last night's General Meeting of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS), I am one of five nominees for the position of Editor-in Chief of the academic journal Biosemiotics, nominated by current Editor-in-Chief Marcello Barbieri.

The nominee with the most support in the biosemiotic community is Alexei Sharov. Although I primarily run for the position myself, I secondarily support Alexei. He would be an excellent choice, with his long experience, innovative approach and placement in systems theory biosemiotics.

This is what I have written to Springer's Senior Publishing Editor Catherine Cotton:

first of all, I confirm that I am willing to serve as a member of the editorial board in the way you describe. Second, I signal that I am interested in being considered for the position of Editor-in-Chief (primarily) or book series editor (secondarily), with the following agenda: I would...  

1) actively make use of citation data, sales/download data etc. in developing strategy and working to improve the standing of the journal (or book series) 

2) be undogmatic in dealing with contributors 

3) be open to making use of different semiotic traditions, Peircean and non-Peircean (and, within Piercean biosemiotics, be undogmatic and emphasise the value of diversity in interpretation) 

4) seek to make room for and highlight 'third paths' alongside Peircean biosemiotics and code biology, including for biosemiotics built on systems theory (represented e.g. by Aleksei Sharov) 

5) encourage collaboration across 'schools' and traditions (while also allowing for competition between them) 

6) assure a certain balance between orientation towards natural science, the humanities (including philosophy) and social sciences 

7) stimulate discourse and debate on fundamentals, including those on which we diverge 

8) emphasise the central role played by Uexküll's Umwelt theory, and encourage further development of Umwelt theory 

9) stimulate development of, and showcasing of, concrete applications of biosemiotic theory, in order to go beyond theory and methodology and move towards innovative scientific observations and breaktroughs 

10) initiate the creation of a biosemiotic glossary [...]. This would either take the form of a single project - a Special Issue or a book volume - or of an article series in the journal, with a section in each (regular) issue being devoted to a review of one key term per issue. Each review would map different uses and interpretations of the key term reviewed, and suggest synthesis in the form of a new definition. The long-term goal of the glossary project would be to be approaching concensus on the understanding of key terms, and thus contribute to biosemiotics' development as a maturing scientific field. In addition to literature studies/review the work with the glossary would likely involve a broad and representative survey among biosemioticians.