We are pleased to announce the upcoming Special Collection on the vegetation of the Balkan Peninsula in IAVS’ gold open access journal Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS). This Special Collection is launched in conjunction with the annual conferences of two IAVS Working Groups in 2026, namely the 21^st Eurasian Grassland Conference of the EDGG in Sofia, Bulgaria, and the 34th Conference of the European Vegetation Survey (EVS), in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

Within Europe, the vegetation of the Balkan Peninsula is particularly diverse yet understudied in terms of composition, variation and range. With this Special Collection, we thus want to advance the knowledge on the Balkan vegetation, take a fresh look both within and beyond national borders and contribute to an improvement of the “EuroVegChecklist” as the common syntaxonomic backbone of the continent. According to the scope of VCS, contributions either need to develop or to apply a vegetation classification framework of any type. For example, this can be based on a phytosociological classification system, habitat types, or synusiae. Studies on any kind of vegetation from the coasts to the highest mountains, from natural through semi-natural to anthropogenic are welcome. We envisage particularly the following types of contributions:

·         Revisions of syntaxa (classes, orders, alliances...) at the national or supranational level

·         Vegetation monographs of a certain region

·         Synthetic overviews (category Review and Synthesis) of all syntaxa of a country or other larger regions

·         Nomenclatural proposals related to Balkan syntaxa

·         Habitat typologies and their application

·         Long and Short Database Reports

·         Perspectives on how to harmonize and how to utilize syntaxonomic knowledge

Apart from Research Papers, also Reviews and Syntheses and Forum Papers as well as Long Database Reports and Nomenclatural Proposals are welcome. We hope to see submissions from the Balkan countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey-in-Europe), while syntheses across multiple countries are particularly welcome. Please consult the author guidelines whose formal requirements also apply to the Special Collection.

Editors: Jürgen Dengler (Switzerland), Erwin Bergmeier (Germany) and Urban Šilc (Slovenia); in case of a high number of submissions, one or two additional guest editors might be appointed.

Procedure and deadlines:

·         Until 31 October 2026: Please submit your (preliminary) abstract online at: https://forms.gle/gxofv8FuZQkqFmeK7. The abstract must follow the VCS Author Guidelines.

·         Until 30 November 2026: The Guest Editors will evaluate the abstracts and inform the authors which manuscripts are invited for submission.

·         Until 30 May 2027: Invited manuscripts can be submitted at: https://vcs.pensoft.net/ 

·         Spring 2028: The Special Collection will be completed with a synthesizing editorial by the Guest Editor team.

We look forward to receiving your contributions and hope that you will join us in making this Special Collection a valuable resource for the IAVS community.