The Journal of Niche NLP is a Finland-based, international, open-access academic journal dedicated to exploring the less-travelled paths of Natural Language Processing (NLP).

Contemporary NLP research is often shaped by SOTA methodologies and numerical benchmarks. While these developments have brought significant advances, many worthwhile research questions, datasets, languages and methodological approaches receive comparatively little attention.

The Journal of Niche NLP aims to provide a venue for such work.

We believe that valuable NLP research does not always need to follow prevailing trends. Research addressing overlooked problems, exploring unconventional approaches or questioning widely accepted assumptions can make important contributions to the field.

Aims and Scope

The journal welcomes original contributions addressing topics that are underrepresented in mainstream NLP research.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Underrepresented and endangered languages: Computational research on languages that receive limited attention or lack extensive digital resources.

• Historical and non-contemporary language data: NLP applied to historical texts, ancient languages and other challenging linguistic materials.

• Interdisciplinary research: Work connecting NLP with other fields.

• Alternative methodologies: Research exploring methods and approaches outside currently dominant NLP paradigms, particularly where these offer meaningful advantages for specific problems.

• Critical perspectives: Thoughtful examinations of prevailing assumptions, research practices and methodological trends within NLP.

• Overlooked problems and applications: Research addressing important questions that fall outside the mainstream priorities of the NLP community.

The journal does not reject mainstream approaches, including large language models. Nor does the use of an older or less popular method automatically make a contribution suitable for publication. Submissions should demonstrate a clear research motivation, scholarly relevance and a meaningful contribution to an underexplored topic, problem or perspective.

Our interest is not in novelty for its own sake, but in research that broadens the questions NLP asks and the ways in which it seeks to answer them.

Types of Contributions

The Journal of Niche NLP publishes three types of contributions:

Research Articles

Original research presenting new findings, methods, resources, analyses or applications relevant to the journal's scope. Research articles should make a clearly articulated scholarly contribution.

Position Papers

Well-reasoned and insightful papers that critically examine established practices, challenge prevailing narratives or propose alternative directions for NLP research.

Short Commentaries

Concise contributions offering observations, critiques, reflections or discussions of specific developments, challenges or opportunities within the field. Commentaries provide space for focused scholarly discussion without requiring a full-length research article.

Peer Review

The Journal of Niche NLP operates a double-blind peer-review process, in which the identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from one another during review.

Submissions are evaluated on their scholarly quality, methodological soundness, clarity, originality and relevance to the journal's scope.

The journal recognizes that research on niche topics may not always conform to the conventions, resources or evaluation practices prevalent in mainstream NLP.

Open Access and Publication Fees

The Journal of Niche NLP is fully open access and completely free for both authors and readers.

There are no submission fees, article processing charges or publication fees.

All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, allowing others to share and adapt the published work, provided appropriate attribution is given.

Authors retain copyright to their work.

We believe that financial barriers should not prevent researchers from publishing or accessing scholarly knowledge.

Special Issues and Collaborations

The Journal of Niche NLP welcomes collaborations with academic workshops, conferences and other scholarly initiatives to publish special issues focusing on topics aligned with the journal's aims.

Such collaborations may provide an opportunity to develop promising research presented at specialized academic events into journal publications.

All contributions to special issues must undergo appropriate peer review and meet the journal's scholarly standards. 

An International Journal

Although based in Finland, the Journal of Niche NLP welcomes submissions from researchers around the world, regardless of institutional affiliation or country of residence.

The language of publication is English.

We particularly encourage contributions from researchers working on topics, languages or approaches that are insufficiently represented in major NLP publication venues.

Our goal is to foster an inclusive international scholarly community in which valuable research can find an audience regardless of whether it aligns with current trends.

Our Philosophy

The Journal of Niche NLP is founded on a simple principle:

Not all important NLP research is mainstream, and not all worthwhile research needs to become mainstream.

By providing a dedicated venue for overlooked topics, alternative perspectives and intellectually diverse approaches, we hope to contribute to a broader, more inclusive, and more reflective NLP research landscape.