About 

KEY ISSUES is Bremen’s first and only peer-reviewed open access student-run academic journal.

Founded in late 2014, it seeks to promote high-quality student research in the social sciences. Many students produce great original research, however only very little of it is ever disseminated among students — let alone leaves the campus. Moreover, undergraduate and graduate students lack the possibility of experiencing the process of peer-reviewed publishing, which is a fundamental feature of professional academia.

KEY ISSUES addresses these problems by providing a peer-review process to students and honoring their work in a print and online publication.

Our Mission
​The city of Bremen sports three institutions of higher education, yet students of different universities often do not feel very connected to each other and hardly know what is going on the other side of the bridge (several bridges connect Bremen's districts of Neustadt - Hochschule Bremen, Horn-Lehe - Universität Bremen, and Vegesack - Jacobs University Bremen). The purpose of KEY ISSUES is to highlight key issues in social research and to foster the exchange between the student bodies of the three universities. Furthermore, the journal aims to provide a bridge between various disciplines, interpreting "social sciences" in an inclusive way (which means to include e.g. humanities if they explicitly deal with social conditions and change such social/political history or political philosophy). 

Our History


Autumn 2014: We started to think about creating a student-run academic journal. Ever since, we went through the intricate process of designing and conducting a peer-review process.

September 2015: Our newly formed Advisory Board met with the editors to provide immensely important input and clear the way for the first issue of KEY ISSUES.

November 2015: Our first issue was printed and distributed. Hurray!

26 November 2015: We reached an all-time peak of visitors to this very website: exactly 101 people visited us on one day.

Spring of 2016: Upon evaluating our success and the positive feedback to the journal, we decided to stick with a printed version for now and publish a second call for papers.

15 June 2016: We closed the round of submissions and assigned our great volunteer reviewers (most of them PhD students in Bremen and around the world). They chose the best among the good. Now, we are awaiting the re-submissions of the manuscripts including changes as recommended by the reviewers. 

February 2017: Release of the digital version of our second issue! Yeah! With a little delay we now completed the editing and layout of our next issue of KEY ISSUES. The print version will be distributed at all three universities in the coming weeks. Thanks for your patience. Let us know what you think by writing to keyissuesbremen@gmail.com and like our Facebook page. 

March 2017: Finally the print version of KEY ISSUES' second issue has arrived in Bremen. We distributed the 150 copies at Jacobs University, Universität Bremen and Hochschule Bremen once again. Thank you Jacobs Undergraduate Student Government (USG) for the financial support toward the printing costs! We hope you enjoy your printed copy!

July 2017: We closed our third submissions round and received eleven manuscripts from both BA and MA students from around Bremen. This time, our peer-review and resubmission process lasted a little longer than in previous years. 

December 2018: The third issue of KEY ISSUES is online! This time, two wonderful articles by talented MA graduates of Bremen's universities are being included. This time, we will try out digital distribution only, focussing on mailing lists and our Facebook page. Please do let us know whether you would like to have a printed version once again.