Any undergraduate student who has performed faculty-guided research at UGA. This can be through a formal research course, a summer program, or an informal agreement with a UGA faculty member. 

Our focus lies in STEM, and, because of this, we are limiting publications to biology, chemistry, physics, and adjacent disciplines (biochemistry, medicine, neuroscience, genetics, engineering, computer science, artificial intelligence, science education, and more). If you have a question about your submission, reach out to our team and we will provide further clarification. 

Undergraduate students who are selected to publish in Catalyst will have a chance to participate in the complete peer-review process with published authors from their field. The final result is a journal-quality article that will be shared with the entire UGA community. The top manuscripts in each journal will receive an award to present their work at a regional or national conference. 

Publishing in Catalyst does not preclude you from submitting to other journals (ACS, JAMA, APS, Nature, etc.). We require your faculty mentor’s consent for Catalyst to review and publish your work. Catalyst focuses on highlighting UGA undergraduates’ contributions to research, and typically features less detail than a lab’s final journal article. We aim to avoid conflicts of interest with the submission’s principal investigator. If awarded a grant, it will support that student’s participation in presenting the work at a conference, without affecting the presentation of the project as a whole. 

Catalyst is a platform for showcasing significant research conducted in UGA labs by undergraduates, whether through official courses, summer programs, or informal faculty arrangements. The best article will receive a travel grant for presentation at a regional or national conference. Catalyst Reviews is dedicated to literature reviews written by undergraduates in a relevant field. These submissions also undergo full peer-review. The top review will also receive an award; however, it is not intended to serve as a complete travel grant. 

This varies based on the article’s discipline, but you can generally expect a reply within one week. This initial response will indicate whether your article is moving to peer review or if it’s declined for reasons such as insufficient content or improper formatting, requiring resubmission. If your article proceeds to peer review, expect to receive first revisions 3 weeks post-submission.

Publishing in Catalyst is an extensive process. We rigorously check for data quality, accuracy, and appropriate citations. Depending on the quality of the initial submission, the process could take multiple months to complete. For more details, please reach out to our team. 

You will be assigned a team of reviewers who have published work in your field and will constructively critique your submission to the standard of an academic journal. It is in everyone’s best interest to support our authors as much as we can! Feel free to reach out at any time during the process by emailing catalystjournal@uga.edu.

The submission form and styling guide are available under the "Publish With Us" page. Please contact the Catalyst team catalystjournal@uga.edu with any questions!

Contact us anytime via email catalystjournal@uga.edu or use the "Contact" section on our website. 

We are always looking to expand! Catalyst welcomes all students looking to contribute either with new research, manuscript editing, journalism (interviews and editorials), graphic design, or outreach. Our staff application is available via the "Join the Team" button on the bottom of this page. 

We are extremely grateful to any person or organization that chooses to support our cause. Please contact catalystjournal@uga.edu and we will direct you to the appropriate avenues for gifting.