In order to reduce the increasing cancer burden in Lower and Middle Income Countries (LMICs), oncology journals must support authors from underserved settings to become fully involved in the global publication system, without facing barriers to publishing their research such as geographical bias and lack of funding. ecancermedicalscience’s goal has always been to publish high-quality research which contributes towards narrowing the gap between those who have access to adequate cancer prevention, treatment and care and those who do not. The time is now right for the journal to take new steps in proactively supporting authors from LMICs and the global partnerships that are vital to increasing the availability of resource-appropriate data. With this in mind, ecancermedicalscience will only be accepting submissions which feature at least one author from an LMIC, or which have a significant impact on under-resourced settings. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that 81% of new cancer cases over the next two decades will occur in LMICs, where survival rates are currently lowest, but only 5% of total global spending on cancer care is expended in these regions [This highlights the urgent need to increase the amount of education regarding cancer prevention and treatment in underserved settings, and provide policy makers with high-quality, peer-reviewed, regionally appropriate evidence. Increasing the amount of research which is published and read by oncology professionals in LMICs is key to raising awareness of the latest developments in global cancer research and bringing attention to the region-specific issues surrounding cancer prevention and care in underserved settings. The dissemination of innovative and practical global cancer information is a fundamental component of reporting practices which adapt existing health infrastructure to resource-constrained settings. Even in High Income Countries, there are underserved populations such as people living in poverty, migrants and indigenous people who are at higher risk of cancer and have poorer outcomes – more research needs to be carried out and published about these groups in order to reduce the existing health disparities.The World Cancer Declaration calls for the provision of innovative education and training for healthcare professionals (HCPs) to improve significantly, particularly in LMICs . The ineResearchers from Africa and other LMICs are the least able to pay to access information or afford open access Article Processing Charges (APCs) so that they can publish their own research, resulting in ‘lost science’ in the form of information which is either not published or simply not made freely accessible to all. This leads to doctors being unaware of specific data and best practices which would make a difference to outcomes for their patients.ecancer carried out in 2019 showed that the majority of the 85 respondents (78%), had faced barriers to getting their research published, generally due to a lack of funding, inadequate research techniques, geographical bias and linguistic difficulties. A lack of available data which was relevant to their regional or racial context was also a problem. 85% had faced problems accessing the latest research and guidelines in order to be able to treat their patients—the biggest obstacle was cost [The results of a survey of African oncology HCPs which was cost .ecancer’s Editorial team.More recently, a new challenge faces cancer control improvement worldwide. The explosion of the COVID-19 crisis has changed the picture: the urgency of controlling the pandemic has delayed or complicated cancer prevention and care, particularly in under-resourced settings. In this new context, rapid global information is a critical need. The inclusion of an innovative fast-track process for cancer and COVID-19 papers, with an average review process of 14 days, demonstrates the flexibility and rapid innovation of ecancermedicalscience’s submission criteria to only accept articles with at least one author based in an LMIC or representing research that directly benefits LMICs. This pioneering approach will allow us to contribute towards addressing the imbalance in global scientific publishing and combat the significant lack of data on which to base national cancer control plans in LMICs. We feel that the time is right to proactively support authors from LMICs and the global collaborations that are vital to the development of key skills in this area. Our hope is that this will encourage fruitful partnerships between High Income Countries and LMICs to progress the pace of cancer research globally. The journal has always been fully open access and this will continue, so that no reader is barred from accessing the information they need.We have taken the decision to refine We will focus on commissioning articles which report new developments and show best practice in subjects which most urgently need to be covered for underserved settings, such as the implementation of vaccinations for liver and cervical cancers, tobacco-control policies for smoking-related cancers, and low-tech early detection methods for cervical cancer, as well as pain relief at the palliative stage.ecancer we help to close this gap by offering the extra support some authors from LMICs need to develop a high-quality manuscript. We also provide free English language editing where necessary, and authors are able to submit in Spanish—if their article passes peer review it will be translated for free and published in both English and Spanish. Only peer reviewers with a deep understanding of underserved settings are selected for these articles. All authors also receive free copyediting and open access publication with a CC BY copyright licence.It is essential that local experts are involved at every step of the publication process, so selected experts in these areas are invited to join the Editorial Board and asked to serve as Guest Editors on special issues focusing on under-resourced settings. The journal team works closely with authors during the pre-submission, peer review and publication processes, offering personalised support and helping them to develop their papers to meet international publishing standards. The publishing system has always been biased towards those authors who have the benefit of training and mentorship from colleagues and their institutions so at ecancermedicalscience will focus our resources on making a significant contribution to ramping up scholarly output to help support the healthcare communities who are on the front line of the current and future crisis in cancer care and treatment. Every patient deserves the best possible care and at ecancermedicalscience we will continue to foster international communication and collaboration and offer the support that will empower healthcare communities in the worst affected areas.The international publishing community has a duty to support and collaborate with researchers and clinicians in underserved settings, with a consequent positive impact on population health and patient outcomes. The new submission criteria for ecancer, UK charity no. 1176307. There are no other conflicts of interest to declare.KF is employed by No direct funding for this article was received.


For a long time, π-conjugated materials have played a central role in the fields of modern materials chemistry and nanotechnology. Ranging from fullerenes and carbon nanotubes discovered between the 1980s and 1990s ,3, to moNew Studies of Conjugated Compounds, is compiled in the journal of Molecules, which is aimed at highlighting the recent studies in this vibrant and broadly covered field. This Special Issue contains two interesting papers. Nielsen and co-workers [In view of all these exciting advancements, a Special Issue, entitled -workers  reported-workers , which h-workers , may offIn a mini-review article contributed by Jarosz and co-workers , recent Molecules. I am very grateful to the editorial office of Molecules, especially Mr. Zack Li for his valuable time and support on this Special Issue. 2020 is indeed a very challenging year to many researchers, due to the global outbreak of COVID-19. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that we can and will prevail, and scientific research on π-conjugated compounds will be continually fruitful in the years to come. In closing, I would like give my sincerest thanks to all the authors and reviewers who contributed to this Special Issue, and wish everyone good health and safety in this difficult time.As the Guest Editor of this Special Issue, I am honored to make comments on the above-mentioned articles recently published in


To the editor:We read with interest the proposal for segmented peer review by Dr Dinakaran et al. Librarians are, of course, well positioned to evaluate complicated search strategies and the methodologies of evidence syntheses. In 2018, we surveyed medical librarians to understand their experiences as peer reviewers of systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis papers and learned that some librarians decline to review papers because they do not feel competent to evaluate the whole papers. One quote that we included in the article: “I was asked to review the entire systematic review, which I did not feel competent to do. Had they asked for the search methods/search strategy only, I would have been happy to do so.” We also offer the parallel example of statisticians, who are frequently asked to peer review sections of papers that involved complex statistics, without needing to comment on the entire manuscript. [2]Journal editors seeking peer reviewers with expertise in evaluating systematic searches are invited to use the Librarian Peer Reviewer Database. Segmented peer review as proposed by Dinakaran et al could reduce the burden on individual reviewers while also welcoming into the peer review ecosystem reviewers whose deep (if narrow) expertise is important in ensuring the high quality of accepted manuscripts.Kate Nyhan: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Holly K. Grossetta Nardini: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.


Predatory journals and conferences have little or no peer review. Their raison d'être is for making money through the article processing charges and the conference registration fees. Without a critical evaluation, predatory journals publishing flawed results and conclusions would cloud the existing scientific literature. Predatory conferences are the offshoots of predatory publishing. The conferences are not organised by learned societies, but by profit-making event organisers. There is a need for awareness among researchers and clinicians regarding predatory publishing. The scourge of predatory publishing and conferencing should be more often highlighted during scientific meetings and publication courses. Their raison d'être is for making money through the article processing charges (APC) and the conference registration fees.Have you ever received an email from an unknown sender inviting you to submit an article for an open access journal or to speak at a conference? If so, you are not alone. This is the modus operandi of these scammers - sending spam emails to unsuspecting researchers. Driven by the maxim of ‘publish and perish’, young researchers may unwittingly become victims of these scams. Predatory journals and conferences have little or no peer review3. Over the last decade, a group of profit-based open-access journals and publishers emerged to offer the opportunity to publish with high acceptance rates and short processing time (within days), without providing basic quality control as expected by the scientific community5. Coupled with aggressive email soliciting, many young researchers were lured by these offers, without realising that there would be little or no peer review. Moreover, once the manuscript has been accepted, it would not be archived or indexed as promised6.In the 2000s, funding bodies started encouraging researchers to publish in open-access journals7. Although some argued that his method of selection was too subjective and not validated, the “Beall’s list” of predatory journal /publishers has been helpful in guiding researchers and academics to address this serious issue9.Jeffrey Beall first used the term “predatory” to describe these questionable journals / publishers10. Mercier et al reported that over a period of 12 months, one recently graduated physician  received a total of 502 unsolicited email invitations, in which 237 were for manuscript submission, 205 were for attending, speaking or organising a conference, 30 to serve in a journal editorial board, 6 to become guest editor of a special journal issue and one to be the editor-in-chief of a journal11. Similarly, an orthopaedic journal editor received 16 invitations to join editorial boards and 3 invitations to keynote conferences within a single day12.These predatory journals may invite an author to submit papers in a field that is totally not related to the research area or experience. Occasionally an invitation may cite an article that the author had published in a legitimate journal13. When analysed based on publishers, 82% of those in Beall’s list accepted the seriously flawed article. Alarmingly, 45% of publishers listed in DOAJ also accepted the article. The DOAJ has since implemented more stringent selection criteria after March 2014, and re-evaluated previously listed journals15. Another sting paper on mitochondria with “Star Wars” monologue as the content was accepted by 4 out of 9 biomedical journals 16. In 2015, Shen and Bjork reported that over 75% of the predatory journals in Beall’s list were operating from Asia and Africa17.In 2012, Bohannon submitted a fictitious sting paper to selected online journals that were listed in Beall’s list and/or the Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ). Of the 304 journals, 98 (32.2%) accepted the paperet al reported on 104 suspected publishers producing 225 predatory orthopaedic journals18. Only 82 orthopaedic journals were listed in the Journal Citation Report (JCR) by Thomson Reuters at the same time. Twenty journals were indexed in PubMed, and one journal was indexed in the DOAJ. The median APC for the predatory journals was US$ 420  compared to US$ 2,900  for legitimate journals. Most of the predatory journals were apparently located in the USA (56.4%), followed by India (13.8%) and the UK (6.7%). The true locations are probably unknown as many addresses are fictitious. The highest number of published articles were from India , followed by the USA  and the UK (717). Malaysia with 81 articles was the only nation from South-East Asia reported in this study.In 2018, Yan 20. Some of the eminent faculties shown in the conference announcements may not be aware that their names were being used to promote these events. Another feature would be the lack of participation from national or regional faculty, no complimentary hospitality, and no honorarium even for the guest speakers19. In addition to the lack of vetting of the submitted abstracts, there would be many categories of awards or certificates offered to those who presented, usually with additional fees21. Others may be offered the opportunity to publish their work as conference proceedings in journals organized or owned by these event organisers2.Predatory conferences are the offshoots of predatory publishing. The conferences are not organised by learned societies, but by event organisers with the aim of profit-making. The name of the conference usually starts with “World, Global or International Conference of ….”, followed by a relatively general title21. Major cities in the Middle East and North Africa have recently become the epicentres of these predatory conferences19. Kuala Lumpur too has not been spared the scourge of the these organisers. In March 2017, the Malaysian Orthopaedic Association sent out an email alerting all members about an invitation from a questionable “Global Annual Meeting” for orthopaedic surgeons which was scheduled for July 2017.Even online meetings are not spared from exploitation by these profit-making organisers. The host may invite prospective speakers to register or present their topic through internet-based applications, and these will most likely lead to special awards or certifications2. Without a critical evaluation, predatory journals would publish flawed results and conclusions that would potentially cloud the existing scientific literature or interfere with future studies including meta-analyses on these subjects10.Peer review is the hallmark of scientific publishing. Following critical review by scholars in the same field, new knowledge would be added into the literature to provide solution for existing problems or serve as stepping-stones for future advancements22. Damage control by requesting for withdrawal or retraction is rarely successful, especially when a submission fee had been paid23. To make matters worse, it may not be possible to submit the material to other journals because this would be considered as a duplicate submission2.In the field of health and medicine, poorly designed studies with faulty conclusions might be translated into wrong diagnosis and suboptimal treatment for some critical diseases. If an article reporting on an important scientific break-through or potentially life-saving discovery was submitted to a predatory journal, the material may be permanently lost because it would not be indexed by search engines or stored in archives or public repositories like PubMed Central (PMC)10. It is not only authors from low and middle-income countries who are the main targets of these fraudulent publishers. It has been shown that many authors from high-income countries were also affected24.In addition, publishing in these journals may adversely affect the reputation of the author, institution and funding agencies. The career path of a junior researcher or academic may be blocked by inadvertent association with these journals2. The public will be more sceptical with the research outcomes and reluctant to volunteer for clinical studies.Many research grants are supported by public donations. When the research outcomes are lost to these journals/publishers (not available in the scientific literature), future support to these institutions and funding agencies may be reduced. Another equally important adverse impact will be the loss of confidence in research institutions that may include medical centres25.The open-access model has been considered the future of scientific communication since it allows immediate and seamless transmission of information. PLoS One and many BMC journals are examples of open-access journals that have enriched the scientific literature. However, the emergence of predatory publishing would negatively impact these legitimate journals, especially new journals published by national or regional professional societies from low and middle-income countries. The decision by the Medical Council of India (MCI) not to recognise publications in all “e-journals” for the academic appointments or promotions in 2015 is the most glaring example21. It is not difficult to notice that usually these programmes and exhibitions are heavily influenced by one or two major industry sponsors19.We cannot expect predatory conference organisers to focus on issues pertinent to global interest or relevant to public health, since the main interest of the organisers is to make a profit. The predatory conference would be competing with academic institutions and professional bodies for industry sponsorship and registration of participants26. In countries with limited staff and research facilities, stressing too much on research output in the form of publications may be counter-productive since precious time and efforts would be allocated to conducting low level research projects instead of focusing on training of the younger generation or resolving urgent problems faced by the community.An over-emphasis of publications for academic and professional advancement is an important contributor to the emergence of predatory publishing and conferencing, especially in low and middle-income countries where English is not the first language28. Whatever the reason, the action is not ethically and professionally acceptable. Other stakeholders from the medical industry may also collaborate with these publishers and event organisers to benefit from these practices29.In some cases, the authors may not be as naïve as presumed. Due to pressure to publish, it has been shown that some authors intentionally submit to these questionable journals in order to improve their reputation or decorate their curriculum vitae2.Some may question the appropriateness of the word “predatory”, since active promotion or advertisement of a publication or conference by itself is not unethical. It is the lack of critical evaluation and editorial support by qualified peers that contribute a breach of trust since this is expected by the scientific community. Other terms have been proposed as the alternative to “predatory”, but there is no consensus on thisWith the current pressure on junior researchers to publish, it will not be easy to eliminate this serious problem that challenges the reputation and legitimacy of scientific development. There are a few general approaches that we can consider.2.There is a need for awareness among researchers and clinicians concerning predatory publishing. Predatory publishing should be more frequently discussed during scientific meetings, and it should be one of the main topics in science and biomedical publication courses. Creating awareness about the existence of these journals/publishers, and sharing information on their characteristics and common practices would be helpful. Authors should scrutinize the backgrounds of editorial members and verify the published journal metrics on legitimate websites. Some predatory journals use fabricated journal metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), Universal Impact Factor (UIF), or Global Impact Factor (GIF) compiled by bogus companies30 , the DOAJ, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) published the 16 principles of transparency and best practice to guide the medical / scientific community on how to identify legitimate publishers30 .31, Scimago Journal Ranking (SJR)32 or Journal Citation Report33 to identify legitimate biomedical journals before submitting their scientific work.Some institutions and professional societies have decided to develop blacklists of journals related to their fields of research. More recently, authors now rely on a “white list”, which are the lists of journals included by organizations like the DOAJ34:Since November 2014, the DOAJ has adopted more stringent selection criteria to include new journals. Journals that comply with the following seven conditions will be considered to receive the DOAJ seal to certify high publishing standardsUses DOIs as permanent identifiers.Provides DOAJ with article metadata.Deposits content with a long-term digital preservation or archiving program.Embeds machine-readable CC licensing information in articlesAllows generous reuse and mixing of content, in accordance with a CC BY, CC BY-SA or CC BY-NC license.Has a deposit policy registered with a deposit policy registry.Allows the authors to hold the copyright without restrictions.35 or “Think. Check. Attend”36 programmes. These checklists will guide researchers to determine the authenticity of a journal or conference. In addition, researchers need to perform regular online searches to ensure that they are not listed as speakers or editors with these organisations. This is a form of identity theft that may affect the academic and professional integrity of those involved2.Another way to avoid predatory journals or conferences is to use the checklist provided by “Think. Check. Submit”37. Higher impact journals may consider reducing the APC to encourage submissions of manuscripts from low and middle-income countries.Another method is to modify the general approach of professional development especially in low and middle-income countries. Academic institutions should have a practical and realistic approach in planning for the future. An over emphasis on research and publications may lead young researchers to publish in predatory journals. In 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Global Index Medicus (GIM) to encourage national and regional journals from low and middle-income countries to archive and index scientific papers2. However, it may be difficult for a scholar to bring a predatory publisher or event organiser to court when they are most likely operating from a non-existing platform.Legal action against these publishers for failure to provide services that they have advertised may be taken. Many predatory publishers and conference organisers are also involved in copyright and trademark infringements, plagiarism and others forms of unethical practices. Editors, publishers, funding agencies, academic institutions, professional societies and other stakeholders should take the challenge seriously because the unethical practices are bound to damage the credibility and legitimacy of evidence-based science. These practices should be criminalized using the court system23. In 2019, the US Federal Trade Commission won a legal case against the OMICS Group and their companies for deceptive claims for their journals and conferences with a fine of about US$ 50 million28. It is understandable that this approach may not be easy because some of the stakeholders have vested interest in the overall outcome from these fraudulent endeavours38.Successful withdrawal of a paper submitted to a predatory journal has been reportedScientific discoveries, creative innovations and medical breakthrough should be accurately communicated without undue delay for acceptance into the scientific literature or translation into clinical practice. Online publishing allows publishers to accept more articles with less cost, while the open access model allows rapid dissemination of scientific knowledge without barriers. Predatory journals and conferences are dangerous developments that may ruin scientific progress because they sacrifice quality for profit. Since the perpetrators do not adhere to accepted ethical principles, all stakeholders should adopt a multi-faceted approach to defend the integrity of evidence-based science before further harm occurs. National and international regulatory bodies have to take stern action to reject these predatory organizations.


Brazilian Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery (BJCVS) to improve its content and communicate with society. Scientific communication consists of informing, educating, sharing and raising awareness about science topics. Science has changed a lot, and in recent years, important initiatives have sought to make society aware of the openness in science and what can be gained from all these changes. But after all, what is open science? And open access? And how has the BJCVS been working with all this? Well, first, what is meant about Open Science?How do we tell our story? How to transmit this story for years and centuries? These are fundamental questions that allow the . The main premise of open science is to make research results accessible to the public in digital format without restriction and to extend the principles of openness to the entire research cycle, promoting sharing and collaboration as soon as possible, implying a systemic change in the way science and research are done.Open science represents a new approach to the scientific process, based on collaborative work and new ways of disseminating knowledge, using information technologies and new collaboration toolsOpen science is a large umbrella that includes Open Access. And one of the major milestones on open access is the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Published in February 2002, the document is a statement of commitment to open access (peer-reviewed) that must be made available allowing anyone to read, copy, distribute, print, search or reference the full text of articles, collect them for indexing, enter them as data in software, or use them for any other legal purpose, without financial, legal or technical barriers that are not inseparable from the internet access itself.The BJCVS, part of SciELO and so many other national and international databases, has been learning and changing its way of informing science, not only to its collaborators but also to the whole society. The key to progress is to be transparent and accessible and this is the main value that BJCVS has been working with great dedication in recent years, since being an open access journal consists of always learning and being at the forefront of scientific communication.Quality consists of a positive or negative degree of excellence and for BJCVS the improvement of positive qualities has yielded results such as the significant increase in citations received in recent years. In June 2020, the impact factor of the BJCVS was 1,053 .However, there are some names worth mentioning. Dr. Domingo M. Braile made an enormous contribution to this victory. For 17 years (2003-2020), he was the editor-in-chief of BJCVS, being responsible for the organization and professionalization of our journal. The expansion in the number of articles and new communication channels increased the chances of more people reading our articles and citing them in their articles. We had 327 article submissions in the last year, of which 82.7% were foreign articles. In June 2020, we received 58 article submissions and the BJCVS was accessed more than 10,000 times.Although BJCVS invests in new technologies to expand the dissemination of scientific content, its new scientific editor, professor Dr. Paulo Evora, with his extensive knowledge and scientific practice, has been transforming communication and its public engagement: through media communication channels (blog) and social media (Instagram). This stimulus to curiosity and creativity, in addition to the expansion of the network of potential collaborators, allows the dissemination of the results of our research to a larger number of people.Open science, as well as open access, has impacted our status quo on how we do and communicate science. We have nothing to fear from this. As good researchers, we must always be open and accept changes that are welcome for a new world.


Iran J Public Health, hereby this analysis is presented for the year 2019. Besides, this editorial will compare the trend of whole publication process during 2016–2019.In order to have a bird’s eye view on the output of The total number of manuscripts received during 2019 was 2464 from 52 countries. Of course, only the country of corresponding author was considered, so altogether much more countries we had in the panel. Again, Iran had the highest rate of submission, followed by China and Turkey . Figure Out of total submission of 2464 articles during 2019, 2051 articles were rejected after initial in-house evaluation in addition to subsequent peer review. Therefore the acceptance rate for this year was 11.9%.In 2019, the rate of plagiarism cases fortunately was decreased significantly. It might be due to policy of the journal and restrictions imposed by Editorial Board based on the COPE rules. Still, authors of minor cases of plagiarism are given a chance to amend their manuscripts precisely but major cases are rejected.The Journal continued its policy as for exact peer review rules including in-house evaluation followed by double blind peer review system. The reasons for rejecting a manuscript during in-house evaluation are various but the most important cases are out of scope cases, poor outcome, local studies, clinical contents etc. The types of articles published during 2016–2019 are shown in Due to high flow of submitted manuscripts, in many cases, the authors were requested to change the format of “Original Article” to “Letter to the Editor”.The good news for us and respected authors was that the Impact Factor announced by Clarivate Analytics (ISI) for the year 2019 was 1.225 and Eigen factor Score as 0.003740. Obviously it is increased year by year and we do hope to maintain this increasement.http://www.scimagojr.com/, the H index of the journal was 27 until 2018, moreover the rank of the journal was Q3 (According to l was Q3 . Besides


Meanwhile, the Editors became aware of adenouncement published by independent journalists from the “For Better Science” websiteincluding this paper. This denouncement consisted of potential data falsification and/orinaccuracy of results in western blots and flow cytometry plots.As per consensus between the Editors-in-Chief of the Brazilian Journal of Medical andBiological Research (BJMBR) and the Authors, the article titled “Polydatin protects H9c2cells from hypoxia-induced injury via up-regulating long non-coding RNA DGCR5” that waspublished in year 2019, volume 52, issue 12,  has been retracted.


On the occasion of recently published errata in Head & Face Medicine –3, the q"Science journals have the luxury of time" ["Falsified data can affect not only the original publication, but also any subsequent meta-analyses and any resulting clinical or policy changes resulting from the findings of these studies." [Finding an error in a scientific publication is one thing, correcting it is a totally different world. of time" . This quof time"  found thtudies." ."Letters to the Editor" still an effective mean for correcting or retracting a false study? Probably not, as some illustrative examples have shown ["Contacting authors before anyone else knows about potential issues in their work, only serves to give unethical scientists time to hide their tracks – and let’s face it, those who are actually guilty of misconduct probably don’t have any scruples about covering up the evidence of that misconduct." and "While we’d like to be able to say that we find all journal editors responsive to allegations, there are still too many who rebuff efforts to correct the literature, [What options are there for corrective intervention? Ethical scientists have a range of possibilities Table . But, whve shown –10. It iThe scientific community provides some guidelines for dealing with potential problems in scientific work and it is possible to identify a number of different groups who may act: a) editors, b) authors, c) readers, d) institutions, and e) funders Table . Accordihttp://retractiondatabase.org) provides several reasons for retraction. Carrying out a search under subjects "Medicine – Dentistry" and "Medicine – General" revealed 25 different decisions for retraction. Some of these overlap so that overall 15 reasons result  depends on the online skills of individual journal editors, whose attention is to be aroused. A good overview of PPPR platforms can be found in a paper by Paul Knoepfler [Social media is one tool for raising concerns about published work. Such allegations are already dealt with in the guidelines for editors . Dependinoepfler .Another option is to submit a response article that disproves the results of the paper being suspected of fraud. However, as is the case with letters to editors an increased risk remains that the disproving article may not be published. Knoepfler  describePossibilities available for the scientific community to intervene in the process of correction are few. As already mentioned, there is a particular dilemma when false data are aggregated to new knowledge into a meta-analyses, because its existence will continue, even if included studies have been withdrawn. One solution might be a new, updated meta-analysis, if the withdrawal of studies has an impact on the initial findings. Moreover, in accordance with the ICMJE recommendations for proper indexing, the original title and keywords should be enclosed in the update."Insufficient evidence..." ["No trustworthy evidence..." ["Serious limitations..." [In order to avoid the slow and sometimes ineffective paths via journal mechanisms, intervention could take place directly during the search through a literature database. Once a study has been identified for meta-analysis, a written concern (if any) regarding the study should also appear in the search results. This can be achieved by publishing a rebuttal article or a critical assessment with nearly the same title and key words, to ensure equal indexing in electronic databases. Examples in this direction have been provided by The Journal of the American Dental Association’s JADA + Clinical Scans . This section aims to provide a scientific- and evidence-based assessment of research. The terms ence..." , "No truence..." , "Seriouions..."  and manyTo support the self-correcting process of science Head & Face Medicine is open to constructive criticism. The journal editors welcome any critical debate about their published papers if it is scientifically sound and formulated in an ethical and objective manner.


To examine whether the gender of applicants and peer reviewers and other factors influence peer review of grant proposals submitted to a national funding agency.Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).Cross-sectional analysis of peer review reports submitted from 2009 to 2016 using linear mixed effects regression models adjusted for research topic, applicant’s age, nationality, affiliation and calendar period.External peer reviewers.Overall score on a scale from 1 (worst) to 6 (best).Analyses included 38 250 reports on 12 294 grant applications from medicine, architecture, biology, chemistry, economics, engineering, geology, history, linguistics, mathematics, physics, psychology and sociology submitted by 26 829 unique peer reviewers. In univariable analysis, male applicants received more favourable evaluation scores than female applicants , and male reviewers awarded higher scores than female reviewers . Applicant-nominated reviewers awarded higher scores than reviewers nominated by the SNSF , and reviewers from outside of Switzerland more favourable scores than reviewers affiliated with Swiss institutions . In multivariable analysis, differences between male and female applicants were attenuated  whereas results changed little for source of nomination and affiliation of reviewers. The gender difference increased after September 2011, when new evaluation forms were introduced (p=0.033 from test of interaction).Peer review of grant applications at SNSF might be prone to biases stemming from different applicant and reviewer characteristics. The SNSF abandoned the nomination of peer reviewers by applicants. The new form introduced in 2011 may inadvertently have given more emphasis to the applicant’s track record. We encourage other funders to conduct similar studies, in order to improve the evidence base for rational and fair research funding. This study was based on a large sample of peer review reports on project proposals from medicine and other disciplines submitted to the national Swiss funding agency.It is one of the few studies examining the interaction between gender of main applicant and gender of reviewers and the ‘gender matching hypothesis’, as well as the influence of other characteristics of applicants.This study only examined scores from peer review, but not the determinants of the final funding decision or the level of funding. It is therefore unclear whether the differences in scores analysed in the present study influenced funding decisions.This study was carried out by researchers affiliated with the funding agency and not by an independent group of researchers.Expert peer review of research proposals is the accepted best practice for determining which projects are allocated funding.9Other factors than gender can influence peer review. A study of the Australian Research Council found that applicant-nominated reviewers tended to give better ratings than panel-nominated reviewers.11The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) supports basic research and use-inspired basic research in all disciplines. The main funding scheme of the SNSF is project funding, which provides support to independent researchers who propose research on self-chosen topics.To gain insights into gender bias and other potential biases in peer review, we analysed the database of the SNSF to examine the determinants of overall scores from external peer reviewers in project funding.The evaluation consists of four steps.The final choice of reviewers was made by the SNSF. Reviewers from the positive list were chosen only if they had the required expertise and there were no CoI. To exclude any CoI, SNSF employees checked whether reviewers had submitted an application for the same call, whether they had published with the applicants in the past 5 years and whether they work at the same institution or in a closely associated unit. Applicants could also submit a ‘negative list’ of reviewers who, because of a possible CoI, should not be contacted. Providing a positive or a negative list was optional and the lists could include one or several names.The peer review forms and assessment scale were changed in September 2011 to simplify the review, and to achieve a more equal distribution of scores, with fewer proposals in the top category. Up to September 2011, peer reviewers were asked to score six criteria: (1) current scientific interest and impact of the project; (2) originality of the work; (3) suitability of the methods; (4) work plan, feasibility, cost; (5) experience and past performance of the applicants and (6) specific abilities of the investigators for the proposed project. Reviewers were asked to ‘give a rating and provide explanatory comments’ for each of the six criteria. In September 2011, new evaluation forms were introduced,10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035058.supp1Supplementary dataIn the third step of the evaluation, the two members of the council (referee and co-referee) assessed the peer review reports and considered them when ranking the application relative to other proposals. In the fourth and final step, referee and co-referee presented their assessment at the meeting of the corresponding section of the council. Each application was then voted on and approved or rejected.12We analysed the overall scores of external peer review reports submitted from 2009 to 2016. The outcome variable of interest was the overall score of a grant application given by external reviewers. Explanatory variables included meta-data on principal applicants and external peer reviewers, including source of reviewer (applicant-nominated vs SNSF-nominated), gender of the applicant and gender of the reviewer  and country of affiliation of the reviewer (Switzerland vs other). The mean ratio of female to male reviewers per grant application was 0.2. Eighteen per cent of the grant applications had male-only external reviewers while only 1% had female-only external reviewers. SNSF-nominated experts included reviewers who were proposed by the referee, the SNSF office or by experts who declined to review. We also considered the research topic of a grant application as defined by the applicant when submitting their application see , type ofijk is the overall score given by reviewer i to application j submitted by applicant k, the final model is the following:We used a linear mixed effects model to examine the effect of explanatory variables on the overall peer review scores.ijk is the matrix with the explanatory variables, β is the regression coefficient vector and ui, vj, wk are the respective vectors of random intercepts and ε is the vector of random errors. We ran crude and adjusted models. The latter were adjusted for gender of the applicant and reviewer, source of reviewers, country of affiliation of the reviewer, the applicant’s age (per 10 year increase), affiliation, nationality (Swiss vs other), the field of research (12 categories) and the period of submission of the proposal . To make adjusted and crude estimates comparable, we performed a complete case analysis by deleting peer review reports with missing values for any of the relevant variables. We examined interactions between the gender of the applicant and the gender of the reviewer, and other variables, by including interaction terms in the linear mixed models. We thus examined the ‘gender matching hypothesis’, which stipulates that female peer reviewers give higher scores to female researchers and that male reviewers do the same for male applicants.where Xwww.git.io/fhaJx.We present crude and adjusted regression coefficients, which reflect differences in peer review scores with their 95% CI. The notebook of the analysis, including summaries of the different statistical models, is available online at This analysis was based on peer review reports submitted to a national research funder. No patients were involved in developing the research question, outcome measures and overall design of the study. Due to the anonymous nature of the data, we were unable to disseminate the results of the research directly to study participants.We analysed the summary scores of 38 250 external peer review reports on 12 294 project grant applications across all disciplines that were submitted from 2009 to 2016 by 26 829 unique reviewers from Switzerland and abroad. The average number of reviews per grant application was 3.1, applicants submitted an average of 2.1 grant applications and reviewers reviewed an average of 1.4 applications. The complete case mixed effects regression analyses were based on 37 989 reviews (99.3%).The 12 294 proposals were submitted by 5820 applicants: 4514 (77.6%) men and 1306 (22.4%) women . Most apwww.git.io/fhaJx). Male principal applicants received higher evaluation scores than female principal applicants  compared with applicants affiliated to Cantonal universities. In this context, male applicants from other institutions got systematically higher ratings than their female peers, while the observed gender differences in scores for applicants from Cantonal universities were less pronounced, especially after adjustment for confounding variables. The under-representation of female researchers in the ETH domain and in other institutions might have contributed to this situation, by making the few women applicants appear less qualified to the male reviewers.Peer reviewers affiliated with a Swiss research institution gave lower scores than reviewers from outside Switzerland. A study of the Austrian Science Fund suggested that reviewers from countries with high scientific productivity were more stringent than national reviewers.Our study has several limitations. First, we did not examine the determinants of the final funding decision or the level of funding. It is therefore unclear whether the differences in scores analysed in the present study influenced funding decisions. Such analyses are planned for the future. Second, this is an observational study and it is therefore difficult to infer causality from the associations observed. Chance, bias and confounding variables must be considered as possible explanations for associations between reviewer and applicant characteristics and overall scores.In conclusion, our results had important implications for the evaluation of project grant proposals at the SNSF. The foundation abandoned the nomination of peer reviewers by applicants, and made members of evaluation panels aware of the other factors, including the gender and affiliation of reviewers, that can influence review scores. We encourage all funding bodies to contribute to research on potential biases in research funding, and ways of preventing them.28


We found that although we have some gender diversity among our editorial team and editorial board,We are committed to ensuring that perspectives from authors based in LMICs are evident in the articles we publish. Any article submitted to GHSP reporting results from research or program experience in specific LMICs should include authors from these countries. In instances where a submission lacks local authorship, under our revised authorship guidelines, the corresponding author is now expected to provide reasons for any such omission in the cover letter accompanying the submission. Additionally, we are working to revise our instructions for authors to better promote ethical authorship practices.We are committed to removing publication barriers that can disproportionately impact authors based in LMICs. Recognizing that journal fees can be a major impediment to article submission and publication, especially for researchers in LMICs,,We expect that any individuals or institutions from HICs that are implementing programs or conducting research in LMICs will respectfully and substantively engage stakeholders from those countries in decision making, planning, implementation, and research and are revising our instructions to authors to reflect that expectation.Recent efforts to “decolonize global health” signal an increasing commitment by many players to address these issues of imbalance and inequity.We recognize that the challenges of power asymmetries and inadequate diversity are complex and multilayered, and our efforts to address them constitute only a modest first step in the needed direction. We commit to holding ourselves to account, and we invite our readers and other stakeholders to hold us to account as we work to meaningfully follow through on these initial actions. To that end, we invite our readers, especially those in LMICs, to share their perspectives through letters to the editor, commentary, and research.


Chapter 4, “A Systematic Literature Review of Information Sources for Threat Modeling in the Power Systems Domain” was previously published non-open access. It has now been changed to open access under a CC BY 4.0 license and the copyright holder updated to ‘The Author(s)’. The book has also been updated with this change.


The publishing landscape is rapidly shifting. A few decades ago, almost all journals were based on subscriptions, paid by libraries, universities and research institutes. During this century, we have seen a strong growth of open access journals, where the cost of publishing is covered by authors.There is increasing awareness in society that results from publicly funded research should be made freely accessible. Scientists, policymakers, journalists and other stakeholders should be able to access the latest scientific information without having to pay large costs to the publishers.There is now strong international momentum to increase the transition to open access, e.g. through the OA 2020 initiative.Many research funders and institutes now require scientists to publish research results through open access. The classical subscription journals have accommodated this by creating ‘hybrid journals’, with an extra cost for those who wish to publish open access. For many years, this journal has been, and still is, a hybrid journal, but with an increasing level of papers published open access, now around 25%. The hybrid model is not considered an optimal solution for financing open access, since it implies payment for both subscription and publishing.The European Public Health Association’s (EUPHA’s) policy has been to advocate for read-and-publish agreements. Such agreements are already in place in several countries.One long-term solution for financing scientific publication is through ‘read-and-publish agreements’, whereby a country, or a consortium of universities or research funders, pay an overall sum to publishers allowing both access to reading and to publish open access. EUPHA has also advocated for maintaining the learned societies’ role in the running of scientific journals. Many ‘pure’ open access journals are just catalogues of scientific manuscripts, whereas societies want to include editorials, viewpoint papers, commentaries, society news etc., in their journals. EUPHA is determined to keep the European Journal of Public Health (EJPH) as a society journal, combining high level scientific publication with policy papers, debates, and public health news. This is an important part of EUPHA’s knowledge translation policy, implying a priority for the association to strengthen public health science, policy and practice in Europe.EUPHA and its members have discussed a possible shift for the EJPH to a complete open access journal. Overall, reactions have been positive, although there remains concern regarding weaker institutions and authors without funding to pay for open access.During the past year, EUPHA will find a mechanism to allow possibility to publish in this journal also for those who are not covered by some type of funding for publication or who are not part of read-and-publish agreements.Understandably, the cost for publishing, APC (Article Processing Charge) is a point of concern, It should be pointed out that the overall goal with plan S and shift of payment streams is that publishing costs should not be covered by individual authors, but by public bodies such as research funders, universities or libraries, by funding mechanisms that already are in place in many countries. The analyses performed on national as well as global level all point to the fact that ‘there is money in the system’, i.e. costs paid today by libraries and universities to publishers for subscriptions, are higher than what all APCs would amount to.Beginning in January 2022, this journal will be published fully open access. The current structure with six issues per year, and with editorials, viewpoints and European public health news, will remain. Paper copies that are currently being distributed in big packs all over Europe, will no longer exist, to the benefit of the environment. Certain supplements, for which paper copies are important for targeted dissemination, can still opt for paper copies. Thus 2021 will be a transition year, when we publish all papers accepted on the current agreement, whereas papers submitted from May 2021 will be published under the new agreement.EUPHA and the EJPH follow what is now a strong momentum to make scientific knowledge freely available. By this, we also believe the journal can play an even stronger role for public health science and policy in Europe.With this move to open access, Conflicts of interest: None declared.


It will probably seem obvious to readers but, first of all, I want to tell you that I am truly honored and happy to have been selected as the new Editor-in-Chief of “La Radiologia Medica” (RAME).For this, I want to thank the Board of Directors of the Italian Society of Medical and Interventional Radiology (SIRM) and, above all, the EIC that preceded me, Prof. Andrea Giovagnoni, who strongly wanted me in his editorial staff in 2018 and who taught me to respect and love this job. As John of Salisbury writes in his “Metalogicon” of 1159: “…dicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos, gigantium humeris insidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvenimur et extollimur magnitude gigantea”.Grazie di cuore Andrea!!!In this new era of RAME, there are a number of changes that I would like to highlight to the journal’s readers, as we are confident that such changes will appeal to a wide range of both academic and clinical interests.The excellent work done by those who preceded me has produced in the last year an important increase in journal performance across various metrics. The future goal will be to further increase the ranking of RAME, and this will necessarily require an editorial strategy that includes various initiatives designed to further increase the quality of papers contributions, attracting researchers from across the international academic community, to increase the number of citations and the overall performance of the journal.As the Editor-in-Chief, I recognize the value authors place on high-quality, impartial peer review conducted in a timely manner. Furthermore, it is extremely important to have a quick publication and, to this end, we will try to better structure our editorial team in order to speed up the processing of the submitted manuscripts. I have educated all those already involved with the journal in an effort to provide the highest standards of manuscript review, modification and publication. We have implemented strict peer review criteria, and this will affect the quality of published articles.In updating the Editorial Board, I will therefore try to select a balanced global representation of the leaders in the various sectors of diagnostic and interventional radiology in order to have an editorial team fully committed to the success of this extraordinary journal.I would also like to introduce and develop, as we are living in a technological era, a social communication service that allows those who follow us to be always updated on the editorial news of the journal, and because of this, I really believe that Twitter may be the right way to go.I also invite talented researchers within our international academic community to continue supporting RAME by submitting their research for publication and playing an active role in the review process.It will therefore be a pride and an honor for me to be able to work with an exceptional team of associate editors, deputy editors and all members of the editorial board.Finally, let me thank our publisher Springer, and their devoted team of experts, for their outstanding work, guidance and encouragement for this new adventure.Thank you all once again for your extraordinary support and continued efforts to ensure that “La Radiologia Medica” is recognized as one of the leading journals in its field.


The purpose of this editorial is to introduce Pediatric Reports, a 10-year-old journal that is now at a turning point. On 16 October 2020, MDPI took over from PAGEPress as the publisher of Pediatric Reports. Founded in 1996, MDPI , an Open Access academic publisher, publishes 283 titles, including 78 Science Citation Index Expanded—Web of Science —covered journals [Based on the above information, it is very clear that our journal has transitioned to a very prestigious international publisher. This offers the opportunity to move into a new phase of its development: towards a more global profile, with higher reputation, and possibly standing as a distinctive journal in the field of Pediatrics, with attention to emerging areas, practice-oriented approaches, and a relevant link between academic research and professional practice.Nowadays, academic careers depend not only on the good content of published papers but also on the metrics of the indexes of the journal where the paper has been published . Thus, we all should be devoted to gain the improvement of these indexes. We need to reach in the very near future two main targets: attribution of an Impact Factor, and a tremendous increase in the number of citations for at least the majority of published papers. We acknowledge being too “young” to receive definitive breakthrough papers. Yet, we definitely need to be smart enough to recognize, among the very many submitted manuscripts, those, which appear to be promising enough to be well cited by the peers. This either because they address new or interesting issues, or they make the right questions; those the readers are waiting for because of contemporary events, such as the current pandemic); those papers which contribute interesting, although preliminary, observations, or those papers we might be looking for when coping an unusual clinical case.We may want to share with our potential performing authors an alliance: if you dare to publish your best article with us, we will make any effort to make this paper more and more recognized in the next years, also by a higher/official IF.Once the research has been completed and the paper written, the legitimate expectation and desire of the authors is that it is going to be published as soon as possible. On our side, we feel engaged to provide a very quick turnaround in manuscripts handling. As of today, the average time from submission to publication across all MDPI journals is 39 days and the acceptance rate is 40% . This haNobody can always be right, including the reviewers and the Editors. You may happen to have your paper not perfectly judged, by another journal or by Pediatric Reports. Writing to the Editor in Chief to comment on what you feel has been an inadequate or inaccurate review may sometimes offer a second opportunity to acceptable papers to get their space. If you feel strongly about it, just try it with us. We will consider such papers with an open mind.Usually papers report the results of a research. Yet, you may happen sometimes to design a study or a trial that you feel is missing in the arena. In such situation, Pediatric Reports will be happy to consider submission of a study design paper.As already remarked in other MDPI journals , there ihttps://doaj.org/).The choice of open access publishing has some good reasons. The main good reason is that your paper will be universally accessible to every reader, regardless of his/her access to resources allowing subscription to the journals. This will give the authors a good payback for their effort, with wider reading and, expectedly, more citing. On our side, MDPI is listed as a publisher in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)  with a continuing previous negative trend requires tremendous efforts to get an improvement. Similarly, the low Journal h-index of 16 and the SCImago Journal Rank  also clearly need efforts to be improved. This effort has to be taken on by the Editor, together with the entire Editorial Board. Pediatric Reports needs to expand its editorial board, to reach new areas of research and at least some of the many pediatric subspecialties areas. An engaged and active Editorial Board is vital to make the journal grow. I am keen to work with an Editorial Board that is diverse and inclusive; I would therefore like to extend an invitation to active researchers to apply to join the Editorial Board of Pediatric Reports. The decision to appoint will be based on enthusiasm and motivation, and publication trajectory. Young, motivated and promising authors will be welcome, aside well-recognized investigators and clinicians.present annual analyses of performance and impact metrics, to check the expected positive trend and test how Pediatric Reports is performing versus competitors;expand its horizons and bring greater visibility by addressing hot and emerging hot topics;improve its scientific quality and international reputation, starting from today and over the next few years;improve publication speed and author communication;critically review the Journal acceptance and rejection rates to keep the quality high;be ready to increase the number of papers published, by acting on publication frequency, and number of pages per issue;accelerate the indexing in SCOPUS;establish collaborations with Scientific Societies and Associations in order to reach new interested and promising audiences;be ready to consider featuring special issues, allowing attracting new authors among which some already high-performing ones;promote Best Papers Awards.Accountability must be part of our policy. Thus, to summarize our mission, the Journal is ready to:Please, consider Pediatric Reports a good option for publication of your research papers. We will try to keep up with your expectation.


In year 2020, the Annals enters 25th year of publishing scientific manuscripts: original papers, review articles, and case reports focused on noninvasive electrocardiology. During recent years, we have witnessed transformation of interests toward digital computerized assessment of ECG recordings and increasing use of innovative technologies monitoring ECG signal using different devices such as watches, patches, and other monitoring systems. Our journal became digital few years ago, and now in 2020, we enter the new era of Open Access journal in the spirit of easy access and widespread dissemination of scientific content of the journal. Starting from 2020, all papers published in the Annals will be fully accessible to readers all over the world following current increasing trends of widespread and unrestricted public access to scientific information.A publication fee, paid for by the authors, is required to facilitate open access publishing, and this approach might limit some submissions. We believe that good quality manuscripts resulting from grants and other funded projects will be submitted and published in the Annals continuing our service to scientific cardiology community.Advances in electrocardiology requires further attention, and in 2020, we are introducing a new section called New Technologies for which we envision publishing papers on new methods of ECG recording, innovative signal processing, new interpretation, and increasing use of machine learning. We welcome clinical and engineering manuscripts from academia and industry to disseminate further and faster innovations in electrocardiology. In this issue of the journal, we publish two interesting New Technologies papers, one from France on the assessment of signal quality measured with a smart 12‐lead ECG acquisition T‐Shirt (Fouassier, Roy, Blanchard, & Hulot, Other interesting papers include very up‐to‐date review on ECG characteristics in patients with heart failure and normal ejection fraction from UK (Nikolaidou et al., At the beginning of the year, we would like to thank all authors for submitting manuscripts and for citing papers published in the Annals. Very special thanks go to numerous reviewers of paper submitted to the journal. List of reviewers is shown below. We are looking forward to advancing the field of electrocardiology, clinical cardiology, and new technologies with your help.Wishing you Successful New Year with the Annals at your side!


Correction to: Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 17, 25 (2020)https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-020-00354-9A further review questioned whether the authors should include a further publication, Willems et al 2019 [Concerning the meta-analysis of pooled data, the authors report a 0.45% improvement in performance with the use of New Zealand blackcurrant. In the manuscript, authors compared these results with previously published caffeine data, stating caffeine improved performance by 0.41% . The comWhile the manuscript did address general bias inherent in included studies , authors did not specifically address publication bias, as the pooled data included less than 10 studies and such we deemed would be too speculative . HoweverAnother issue raised by a fresh review was the use of the term “powdered product in a capsule” which we define broadly as a powdered fruit product, incorporating a powdered extract, a powdered concentrate or other powdered blackcurrant product as produced by the New Zealand industry. The authors focused the discussion on the active dose of anthocyanins, which we firmly believe is appropriate, as in practice the active dose could be readily achieved via any New Zealand blackcurrant powdered product and hence we stand by our use of the term “powdered product in a capsule”. In general, powdered product was a generic term to cover all commercial forms of New Zealand blackcurrant fruit powders used in these studies, rather than being a term chosen to reflect any commercial drivers.○ Table 1: Potter, 2020 should read Potter, 2018 .○ Figure 2: Potter, 2019 should read Potter, 2018.The authors have taken this opportunity to correct reference errors in the manuscript, as follows:○ Braakhuis and Somerville are associated with academic institutions, with no competing interests. Hurst has dual associations with commercial organizations that may benefit financially from the sale of sports performance products made from New Zealand blackcurrants: as Principal Scientist for the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited: and as Chief Science Advisor for 2before Performance Nutrition Limited. Funding for this research was provided by The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research. The results are presented clearly, honestly, without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation.During the process of publication, there was a change in the Competing Interests status of one author (Hurst) which led to a fresh review of the manuscript. The revised competing interests section is as follows:The original article contains numerous errors  of whichThe authors appreciate the additional review and feedback initiated by the change in the competing interests of one author. The authors apologise for the misinterpretations of caffeine performance data and for any inconvenience caused.


The essential role of journals as registries of scientific activity in all areas of knowledge justifies concern about their ownership and type of access. The purpose of this research is to analyze the main characteristics of publishers with journals that have received the DOAJ Seal. The specific objectives are a) to identify publishers and journals registered with the DOAJ Seal; b) to characterize those publishers; and c) to analyze their article processing fees. The research method involved the use of the DOAJ database, the Seal option and the following indicators: publisher, title, country, number of articles, knowledge area, article processing charges in USD, time for publication in weeks, and year of indexing in DOAJ. The results reveal a fast-rising oligopoly, dominated by Springer with 35% of the titles and PLOS with more than 20% of the articles. We’ve identified three models of expansion: a) a few titles with hundreds of articles; b) a high number of titles with a mix of big and small journals; and c) a high number of titles with medium-size journals. We identify a high number of titles without APCs (27%) in all areas while medicine was found to be the most expensive area. Commercial publishers clearly exercise control over the scope of journals and the creation of new titles, according to the interests of their companies, which are not necessarily the same as those of the scientific community or of society in general. Publishing research results in a recognized journal is the most accepted way of documenting the originality of the work and confirm that its results were good enough to overcome the skepticism of the scientific community and to be integrated into the knowledge of the area concerned. The need to publish has maintained journals as a key element of scientific research, even with all the technological and social changes of recent years , 2], , , 5], , , , , 11]..11].Mathias, Jahn and Laakso   remind uUlrich’s directory, the biggest publishers of academic journals are Elsevier , SpringerNature , Wiley , Routledge , Sage  and Taylor&Francis , considering all their different companies.Three major commercial publishers  own 42% of all published articles and the majority of the most prestigious and widely circulated journals in 2007. Another 2,000 publishers are responsible for all the rest, none with more than 3% of the total . Half ofIn the Open Access scene, a “study of 319 journals operated by four major commercial publishers, BMC, Frontiers, MDPI, and Hindawi, indicated that higher APCs are associated with higher article volumes.”  . The autBeasley   discussePiwowar el al. (2018)  point ouPiwowar, Priem and Orr (2019)  found thAspesi et al. (2019)  detail tThis study of the main publishers and their collections in the global scenario aims to assess concentration of ownership among the various players and countries in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) database. We have chosen the DOAJ because it is a representative platform for Open Access publishers and journals and it has a policy of accepting only Open Access journals, while excluding titles that choose the embargo or the so-called hybrid model. The general objective of this research is to analyze the main characteristics of publishers holding the DOAJ Seal. The specific objectives are a) to identify publishers and journals registered with the DOAJ seal; b) to characterize those publishers ; and c) to analyze their article processing fees.The DOAJ database was created in 2003 and includes almost 14,000 peer-reviewed open access journals covering all knowledge areas, published in 130 countries. There is a selective process to be followed to assure the quality of the titles and for this reason, DOAJ can be considered as a “white list” to confront supposed predatory publishing .DOAJ is maintained by Infrastructure Services for Open Access (IS4OA) and its funding is derived from donations (40% from publishers and 60% from the public sector). DOAJ introduced a quality distinction, called the DOAJ Seal, to identify the most prominent journals “that achieve a high level of openness, adhere to Best Practice and high publishing standards” (DOAJ)  , value of article processing charges in USD, time for publication in weeks, and year of indexing in DOAJ.For the descriptions of the publishers' characteristics we consulted their websites.The data shows a prevalence of commercial publishers, both traditional and new. We investigated both the number of titles and the number of articles, since these two categories reveal different influences on the scenario. The distribution of knowledge areas is in keeping with the relative prominence of the areas in the scientific world generally, with the highest number of titles falling into the area of medicine. Publishers and knowledge areas influence the value of APCs and the time for publication of the articles, expressed in weeks.PLOS One and International Journal of Crystallography each stand out for a high number of articles from a single journal.The data shows 463 publishers registered in January 2019, 123 with three titles or less and 105 with just one journal. The titles are owned predominantly by four big publishers: BioMed Central, Hindawi Limited, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) and Springer Open. The companies Frontier Media S.A., Copernicus Publications, African Online Scientific Information System (AOSIS), and Nature Publishing Group form a second group with significant numbers of titles. On the other hand, PLOS One has almost as many articles as the collective total for 147 smaller publishers and more than any other single publisher. Despite its small number of titles, PLOS is certainly a central player in the Open Access oligopoly of publishers, along with Bio Med Central (Springer), Hindawi Limited and Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), each of which have more than 180,000 articles. If we add up the articles of these four publishers, they are responsible for 807,271 out of a total of 1,257,208, almost 65% of the total, representing a concentration of ownership bigger than the one described by Larivière, Hautein and Mongeon (2015) ..32].Another option for growth is through partnerships with societies, as described by Mathias, Jahn and Laakso  : “ThrougPartnerships between commercial publishers and non-commercial institutions are a common practice that complicates classification and analysis. According to Crawford  , “there The high concentration of journals controlled by commercial publishers may generate an oligopoly equivalent at the one in the subscription model, since the concentration by commercial publishers in DOAJ Seal replicates in small scale the traditional publishing market . This is“[t]he most critical development in publishing has been the ability of large commercial publishers to find ways to profit from open access. While the original intent of open access was to limit or destroy their monopoly, the exact opposite has happened. They have created a new revenue stream from gold APCs while still mostly retaining their subscriptions for paywalled publications, even in hybrid journals.The complexity of adding open access to the scholarly communication system has induced much smaller scholarly and other publishers to agree to be partners by these large publishers, which has only increased their competitive dominance. Without some major unexpected change, open access, paywalled, and hybrid journals will coexist for the near future.”59% of journals charge APCs of less than US$1,000, confirming that it is possible to have quality journals charging reasonable fees. The high number of titles with no fees in important areas requires a more detailed analysis, preferably a longitudinal one, because APCs may be introduced by journals as they evolve and their position in the rankings changes. Mathias, Jahn and Laakso   comment “commercial publishers have generally been slow in flipping subscription journals to OA at a larger scale, and, more notably, have instead resorted to creating new OA journals, or acquiring established OA journals and entire publishers . Another expression of this reluctant stance to flipping is the emergence of so-called mirror journals: new fully OA journals that capitalize on existing subscription journals. Instead of converting the subscription journal to OA, a separate OA version runs alongside it, sharing the same aims and scope, almost the same name, an identical editorial board, and the same submission system . While not technically hybrid OA anymore, the strategic function of mirror journals for publishers appears similar: retaining the subscription-based core of the business while selling optional OA and potentially circumventing the hybrid ban that has become part of some funding policies.”For commercial publishers, revenues from subscription journals are much more significant than what they receive from Open Access. According to SPARC 2019, p. 25) [ [25] revA connection can be identified between these results and the age of the titles presented in There are two possible explanations for commercial publishers making their titles in Open Access free of charge: a) they are in partnerships with a scientific society that pays the costs; or b) the titles are free until they are indexed in a relevant database and/or have achieved a reasonable level of prominence in the area, at which time fees may be introduced. This is an established strategy to conquer and control new markets and that is being used in various areas . New stuThe relationship between knowledge areas and APC amounts was analyzed to identify possible patterns . The mosThe area with the most expensive titles is medicine, with around 50% of titles charging more than US$1,500 to publish an article. Science and technology follows with a more balanced range of charges. All areas have a few titles with no charges. However, in education, language and literature, and social sciences most titles have no fees and just a few charges more than US$1,000 per article. It is important to remember, however, that a journal may change its APC policy as it evolves, as its impact grows.APC pricing is connected with the publisher’s policy and interests. The creation of new marketing models affects all prices. Springer’s new Read and Publish (RAP) option, which combines OA publishing in hybrid journals with access to subscription content in one agreement and one fee customized for each institution  or countThe time required for publication is an increasing concern for scientists, who depend on articles to document their research. Publication is a crucial part of a researcher’s career and, as Ellers, Crowther and Harvey   note, “Reviewers' comments:Reviewer's Responses to QuestionsComments to the Author1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressedReviewer #2: All comments have been addressed**********2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #2: Yes**********3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #2: Yes**********4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.The Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #2: Yes**********5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #2: Yes**********6. Review Comments to the AuthorPlease use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. Reviewer #1: Thank you for addressing all of the comments. By making these changes the paper is now stronger. This is an interesting paper.Reviewer #2: Interesting paper, the observations well considered, just some misspelling at lines 89 - 4 Not 5 type of OA -, 148, 154.The conclusions are consistent with the aims of the study but, at the end, the DOAJ seal seems forgotten...I would recommend to remind readers that we are in this context...**********what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article  digital diagnostic tool,  29 Apr 2020Reviewer #1: Thank you for addressing all of the comments. By making these changes the paper is now stronger. This is an interesting paper.Many thanks for your remarkable comments which have contribute to improve the paper prominently. Reviewer #2: Interesting paper, Many thanks for your remarkable comments which have contribute to improve the paper prominently.the observations well considered, just some misspelling at lines 89 - 4 Not 5 type of OA –Changed.148, 154.We’re sorry but we haven’t found the mistakes in these lines. We hope that the copyeditor will find them.The conclusions are consistent with the aims of the study but, at the end, the DOAJ seal seems forgotten... I would recommend to remind readers that we are in this context...Changed, we’ve included a remind.AttachmentResponse-to-reviewers.docxSubmitted filename: Click here for additional data file. 6 May 2020Open access publishers: the new playersPONE-D-20-00381R2Dear Dr. Abadal,We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication.https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the "Update My Information" link at the top of the page, and update your user information. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.Shortly after the formal acceptance letter is sent, an invoice for payment will follow. To ensure an efficient production and billing process, please log into Editorial Manager at onepress@plos.org.If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, you must inform our press team as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact With kind regards,Sergio A. Useche, Ph.D.Academic EditorPLOS ONEAdditional Editor Comments :Reviewers' comments: 13 May 2020PONE-D-20-00381R2 Open access publishers: the new players Dear Dr. Abadal:I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. onepress@plos.org.If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper at this point, to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact plosone@plos.org. For any other questions or concerns, please email Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE.With kind regards,PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staffon behalf ofDr. Sergio A. Useche Academic EditorPLOS ONE