Publishing Psychology in Romania: Past Challenges, Present Opportunities and Future Perspectives

The present paper will review Romanian psychology publications and will put a particular emphasis on both the process and current conditions of publishing psychology materials in this country. The article will be structured around three main sections. First, in order to have a broad image of how psychology developed as a science and the challenges it had to face in Romania, a short description of the general context will be offered. The body of the paper will present the key Romanian psychology journals along with other sources, like magazines or online materials, portraying the series of opportunities authors have nowadays to publish their work. The discussion will include high-rated academic journals, academic journals that are edited by universities or professional associations, as well as magazines offering more “popular” versions of psychology. A particular interest will be given to student journals since they represent a niche in the field and emerged from the students’ need to make their voice heard and to prepare for an active professional life as future psychologists. One such initiative will be discussed at length: the case of Europe’s Journal of Psychology, an online open access publication edited by a group of volunteers originally from the University of Bucharest. In the end, a section will be dedicated to the synthesis of the main advantages and disadvantages of the Romanian psychology publishing system and the ways in which a European Publication Platform could answer the needs of both authors and readers in Romania and not only.