The moral panic over the impact of so-called predatory publishers continues unabated. It is important, however, to resist the urge to simply join in this crusade without pausing to examine the assumptions upon which such concerns are based. It is often assumed that established journals are almost sacrosanct, and that their quality, secured by peer review, is established. It is also routinely presumed that such journals are immune to the lure of easy money in return for publication. Rather than looking at the deficits that may be apparent in the practices and products of predatory publishers, this commentary invites you to explore the weaknesses that have been exposed in traditional academic journals but are seldom discussed in the context of predatory publishing. The inherent message for health and medical services staff, researchers, academics, and students is, as always, to critically evaluate all sources of information, whatever their provenance. A review of recent publications on the issue of predatory publishing and predatory journals reveals an ongoing focus on this topic –7. HowevFirst, it must be made clear that the world of commercial academic publishing is a highly profitable oligopoly , 9, 10. a mass movement based on the false or exaggerated perception that some cultural behaviour or group of people is dangerously deviant and poses a threat to society's values and interests. Moral panics are generally fuelled by media coverage .Predatory publishing is often portrayed as threatening the very basis of science and, by extension, our way of life. It must be acknowledged that there is an intense academic focus on predatory publishing within the academic literature. This may almost now be described as an industry in its own right. It appears that we now have a symbiotic relationship in which predatory publishers exist due to mainstream journals, and the mainstream journals themselves now use the existence of such predatory journals as a focus for further publishing. This stark parallel may be seen in Despite the attention paid to the threat of predatory journals, examinations of citations from them indicate that the actual impact of such publications appears limited –14. As sIt must also be acknowledged that some of the venom that has been targeted at predatory journals and some of the general language used in the field to discuss the issue may have racist overtones –18.For example, as well as the routine use of the term “blacklist” to denote a negative list , JeffreyHyderabad, India is one of the most corrupt cities on earth, I think. It is home to countless predatory open-access publishers … and new, open-access publishing companies and brands are being created there every day … The tacit rule of thumb of Hyderabad-based businesses is: Use the internet to generate revenue any way you can. There are numerous internet-based businesses in this over-crowded city .It is hard to forget or forgive this blanket labeling of an entire city and its population as corrupt, and his use of the term over-crowded appears only to stoke racist and xenophobic imagery and ideology.Much of the high-profile criticism that has been leveled at the predatory publishing sector is based on a series of sting operations where authors submitted patently low-quality articles for publication –26. HoweAustralasian Journal of General Practice, Australasian Journal of Neurology, Australasian Journal of Cardiology, Australasian Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, Australasian Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine, Australasian Journal of Bone & Joint Medicine), all of which advocated the efficacy of the products of the sponsoring pharmaceutical company [It is therefore crucial to critically evaluate the mainstream academic literature that is generally held in such high regard vis-à-vis predatory publishers. Perhaps the most infamous case that may require a sober reappraisal and leveling of esteem in the field of publishing is evidenced by Elsevier, a global leader in academic publishing. Elsevier Australia was exposed publicly for receiving payments from a pharmaceutical company for publishing six fake journals  to 3.05 (SD=1.8). Of the five minor errors introduced, the average number noted by the reviewers was just 0.85 (SD=0.8) to 1.09 (SD=0.8). It must be acknowledged that some reviewers recommended rejection before identifying all of the errors, and that some reviewers may not have been familiar with the methodology of randomized control trials (RCTs) but might have performed better reviews in assessing other methodologies. Some caution in interpretation may also be required in relation to this paper, as it was restricted to UK reviewers and hence may not be generalizable. However, and perhaps more disturbingly, this study sought to determine if training in peer review would improve the quality and found that there was no significant improvement [There is significant evidence that peer review routinely fails to detect significant errors, even in reputable journals –37. UndoMedicine . This strovement . Despiterovement . It mustrovement , 40, 41.The so-called predatory publishing field is routinely attacked on the basis of poor quality, the implication being that quality is far higher among established journals operating the traditional publishing models. However, having now raised significant queries over the quality and impact of peer review on traditional journals, it is now opportune to explore a number of other weaknesses in such journals that are also seldom, if ever, linked to the debate around predatory publishers. A host of other critical deficits could be explored within mainstream academic journal articles ranging from publication bias –47 to acNew England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet) over a twelve-month period identified 314 articles with one or more published errata, an average of 1.3 per issue [Starting with errata, it should be noted that even highly prestigious “traditional” journals also routinely include errors in their publications , 55. A rer issue . Even wher issue . In exam33% of oncologists do not read errata, and 45% have read only the abstract when referencing an article. Although 59% of oncologists have noticed errors in cancer publications, only 13% reported the error .Having established the inadequate treatment of errata by publishers of mainstream academic publications, the next section will explore another aspect of publishing that is also seldom mentioned in the predatory publishing debate, that of scientific misconduct and subsequent retractions. This will help to demonstrate the moral panic over predatory publishers is overstated, ignoring the weaknesses of traditional academic publishing.British Medical Journal survey revealed that 13% of respondents reported being aware of fraudulent data manipulation [The Scientist [It must be acknowledged that although some editors may, rather naively, underplay the impact of scientific misconduct in the academic literature, it is a growing issue . It is hpulation , with anpulation . It shoupulation , there ipulation , 66. Notcientist –70.New England Journal of Medicine that was retracted in 2018 [Lancet article, which takes second place, was published in 1998 and has been cited in Web of Science more since its retraction in 2010 than before it (820 versus 643) [Some of the long-term issues noted above in relation to errata, covering what may be termed honest mistakes, are also cause for concern in relation to retractions of fraudulent articles –73. For  in 2018 . The artsus 643) –78. It sThis paper is not designed to be an argument in support of a race to the bottom in terms of quality. However, it is designed to reduce the “blessedness” referred to by Smith in relation to established academic journals  and to a


EP Europace journal and succeeding Prof. Gerhard Hindricks. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Prof. Hindricks and his whole Editorial Board for handing over a very successful journal dedicated to a fast-expanding field in cardiovascular medicine, cardiac electrophysiology. The hard work, dedication, and enthusiasm of Prof. Hindricks and of all editorial board members have made EP Europace one of the most appreciated journals in the growing family of journals dedicated to cardiac arrhythmia disorders diagnosis and management. With an impact factor of 5.486 (year 2022), EP Europace is among the top 4th sub-specialty journals.As recently announced, on 1 January 2023, I have the great honour to take over the position of Editor-in-Chief of the EP Europace during the current year and to share with you some personal strategic thoughts about journal development in the hope of best matching the needs and expectations of our readership in the future.With this editorial, I would like to briefly review the most significant achievements of 1 and then Prof. John Camm’s and Prof Hindricks’ management, EP Europace has experienced a steady growth in high-quality manuscripts submitted from all around the world. The more than 1200 annually submitted articles, a good proportion of them being published as open access, accompanied by a huge increase in the number of downloaded articles confirm the recognition of the scientific and education value of the journal. Along with the increase in the number of yearly submissions, the manuscript acceptance rate has progressively reduced to about 17%, which ensures the publication of high-quality, clinically, and scientifically impactful manuscripts.Since the first journal issue in 1999 under the leadership of its founding editor Prof. Richard Sutton,EP Europace represents the main communication platform for our Association. Indeed, in 2022, the journal has published a total of 19 EHRA scientific documents and EHRA-related scientific initiatives such as EHRA surveys. EHRA scientific documents developed by EHRA Scientific Document Committee alone or in collaboration with other internationally recognized scientific organization are a very important source of current knowledge in the field; they provide state-of-the-art treatment standards and recommendations. Furthermore, they place upcoming technologies and novel research avenues in the proper scientific framework. An excellent and most recent example of clinical practice-oriented scientific document is represented by the EHRA practical guide on how to use digital devices to detect and manage arrhythmias2 with an Altmetric score of 235 by 1 December 2022. Another good example of EHRA-initiated international scientific document is represented by the expert consensus statement on the state of genetic testing for cardiac diseases issued by EHRA in collaboration with Heart Rhythm Society, Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society, and Latin Americas Heart Rhythm Society3 with an Altmetric score of 220 by 1 December 2022. In addition, EP Europace regularly publishes important scientific contributions by the EHRA Scientific Initiative Committee, the EHRA Surveys. These reports collect clinically relevant data on recent trends in the different areas of cardiac arrhythmia management including non-invasive diagnostic tools, use of cardiac imaging technologies, implantable cardiac devices, techniques for cardiac ablation, and patient’s follow-up technologies. EP Europace is also affiliated with the Working Groups on e-Cardiology and Cardiac Cellular Electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology and enjoys regular scientific contributions by these two working groups.Being the official journal of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA), EP Europace represents a leading journal in the field of cardiac arrhythmias and provides a good balance between state-of-the art reviews, scientific documents, and original scientific contributions. In approaching its 25-year anniversary, the question is: where to go from here?In short, In my role as Editor-in-Chief, I feel very privileged to work with five outstanding scientists who will act as Executive Editors: Katja Odening , Elijah Behr , Giuseppe Boriani , Luigi Di Biase , and Jens Cosedis-Nielsen , and a large group of international key-opinion leaders as Deputy and Associate Editors. They will support the journal activities on a daily basis, assisting to identify new strategic editorial opportunities and help to safely navigate in challenging waters.EP Europace and its publisher, Oxford University Press (OUP), are steadily adapting the publication workflow and undertaking editorial measures to cope with it. The newly appointed Editorial Board of EP Europace journal has re-designed the manuscript handling process and is committed to meaningfully reducing the turnaround time of each submitted manuscript while ensuring a fair and balanced peer-review process. Furthermore, to ensure a nearly immediate sharing with the scientific community of the original content of an accepted manuscript, starting on 1 April 2023, the author’s accepted manuscript will be published as a PDF online within a couple of days from when the author signs their publishing licence. A digital object identifier will be given to each manuscript which will allow immediate consultation of the work, article citation, and eventually a significant chance and opportunity for the transmission of messages and article-related data within connected communities. Together with EHRA, the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) journal family, and other scientific partners, the entire Editorial Board, and I sincerely hope that each of our readers will take the opportunity to increase the visibility of results published in EP Europace journal.The raising demand to access breaking news or ‘just happening’ news in our society, supported by the massive use of social media, is contagious to any field of human knowledge including that of arrhythmia management and cardiac electrophysiology. Such society requirements—or expectations—translate into science in a rapid adaptation of the publication model. It is the daily experience of every journal editorial board that scientists request shorter review time of their research findings, expect high-quality feedback and comments by their peers, and demand rapid access to the international audience of their highly valuable accepted scientific content throughout multiple communication channels. To best match authors’ expectations, journal editorial boards and publishers including the new Editorial Board of EP Europace will be the first journal in the sub-specialty field of cardiac arrhythmias management to become a full Open Access journal.To further expand the international visibility of each accepted article including developing countries or geographies with limited access to science, EP Europace will be freely available to all readers. This will mean the research in the Journal will have a wider reach and can therefore be expected to have a wider impact. Open Access charges apply to authors  and—very importantly—there are discounts available to EHRA members. As with all fully Open Access journals published by OUP, there is no charge for papers where a corresponding author submits from a country listed in OUP’s developing countries initiatives (https://academic.oup.com/pages/purchasing/developing-countries-initiative/participating-countries-and-regions). Additionally, OUP has a large number of ‘Read & Publish’ agreements in place, which means many authors will have their open access fees covered by their institution. To learn if your institution has a Read & Publish agreement in place and to find out how to check whether your paper can be covered by the funding available, please see https://academic.oup.com/pages/open-research/read-and-publish-agreements/participating-journals-and-institutions.From January 2023, all papers published in EP Europace as one of the scientific discussion and publication forums for their novel and exciting research findings. The newly appointed editorial board of EP Europace journal also recognizes the significant role played by basic research for the progress of our field; thus, we will particularly welcome scientific contributions with a strong translational message including the area of computational modelling and simulation. Other very relevant scientific and educational areas are represented by the modern approach to syncope, the management of paediatric arrhythmic disorders, and last but not least, electrocardiology, which represents the ‘alpha-and-omega’ in clinical electrophysiology.There is no doubt that the diagnosis and treatment of both atrial fibrillation and ventricular arrhythmias still represent huge clinical unmet needs, and thus the scientific and education focus of the journal will continue to be on these cardiac disorders. Moreover, implantable cardiac device therapies for rhythm disorders will continue to play another important role in the journal. However, the growing and expanding role of cardiac imaging and cardiac genetics in improving and personalizing the approach to arrhythmia management, appropriate device selection, and sudden cardiac death prevention well beyond the traditional ‘ejection fraction of the left ventricle’ will also find major attention in the journal. Indeed, a large and expanded group of Deputy and Associate Editors, all key opinion leaders in the field of cardiac genetics, marks the new journal focus. Therefore, we encourage our readers to consider https://academic.oup.com/europace/pages/General_Instructions), which details the new manuscript categories and article requirements. A major novelty is also represented by the cancellation of acceptance of case report. Therefore, we encourage our readers to consider European Heart Journal – Case Reports for the submission of highly educational, valuable case reports, images, and quality improvement projects.From 1 January 2023, there will be a major change in article categories and manuscripts requirements. Several additional manuscripts categories will be now considered, being ‘Controversy’, ‘Research letter’, ‘Trial design’, and the newest ‘Practical EP’. The new Editorial Board and I would be very happy to receive manuscripts of high research and clinical scientific significance, thus fulfilling the requirements of a ‘Fast Track’ article; we commit to a very short manuscript handling and publication time. Moreover, the reference list accompanying original clinical and translational research manuscripts has been significantly enlarged up to 50 references, and there is no limitation to the number of allowed figures and tables. I encourage authors to view the section ‘Instruction to Authors’ (EP Europace Editorial Board for accepting my invitation to spend time in advising me as Editor-in-Chief and in performing invaluable editorial activities, the entire OUP editorial team for their unrestricted commitment to the new journal course, to my colleagues at Istituto Cardiocentro Ticino for their extraordinary support and encouragement, and all of you who in the past have continuously sustained the journal as author, editor, reviewer, or readers and will continue to do so in the future!I am very much looking forward to a productive, engaging, and enjoyable editorial time conducive to high-quality scientific and educational journal content. This is also the right time to express heartfelt thanks to all members of the new


CLINICS issue published in 2005 as a renamed journal, celebrating 60 years of uninterrupted publications of the Official Scientific Journal of the Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Sao Paulo, in Brazil, the editorial goal was to turn it into an internationally impacting publication covering all the different medical and biomedical sciences.Since the first CLINICS has confirmed the degree of scientific relevance and the range of the national and international scientific research published in the journal by the improvement of different bibliometric parameters. The current CiteScore of CLINICS released by Scopus in 2021 was 2.6, positioning the journal between the 30% top journals in the category of General Medicine, while its Impact Factor published by Clarivate Analytics in the same year was 2.36, ranking it in the 86th position out of 169 journals in Medicine, General & Internal group.Over these 17 years of renamed existence, approximately 2500 original contributions and revision articles coming from more than 50 countries in all the medical specialties were published. Indexed in all the most important international databases, CLINICS Editorial Board has members from 13 different countries and regions committed to publishing electronically peer-reviewed research of interest to clinicians and researchers in continuous flow. Nevertheless, to face the great demand of the manuscripts submitted to publishing, which nowadays add more than 700 articles per year, the CLINICS journal improved its electronic submission system and the review and editing processes through its recent partnership with the Elsevier Publishing Company, ensuring faster responses to the authors and better editorial quality publishing of the articles selected.The consolidation of this important achievement, a result of the remarkable work developed over the years by the editors who preceded us, continues to represent, on the other hand, a great challenge. Nowadays, the CLINICS for the important work developed so far, and we hope to count on your continuing support to carry on this new period that has just been initiated.The future expectations of the CLINICS journal publication under Elsevier include especially the continuing growth of its internationalizing process, increasing the participation of Section Editors, reviewers, and foreign authors. We congratulate all collaborators of


European Journal of General Practice (EJGP) is the scientific journal of WONCA Europe. WONCA is an acronym comprising the first five initials of the World Organisation of National Colleges, Academies and Academic Associations of General Practitioners/Family Physicians. WONCA not only represents the discipline of general practice/family medicine and its professionals – the general practitioners/family physicians – but also academic General Practice. This dual representation translates into a firm mission statement: ‘to improve the quality of life of people through fostering high standards of care in general practice/family medicine’ [The edicine’ .One of the means to reach this goal is the EJGP. The Journal tries to support the mission by publishing high-quality research – conducted by general practitioners or other researchers in general practice – which could help to improve the quality of life of the people we are serving, i.e. our patients. This goal forms the basis of our editorial policy to publish research that matters to our patients directly or indirectly. We believe that the health and quality of life of our patients is best served by GPs who provide high quality care. To this end, GPs must be not only well trained, organised and equipped but also be critical.Every year, the editors of the EJGP evaluate the past volume. In 2021, we published 32 original articles – eight of which were conducted with qualitative research methods –, five (systematic) review articles and four Editorials. Apparently, our Series on Qualitative Research Methodology published from 2017 onwards (our most successful project in terms of page views and downloads) still reverberates. It is good that GPs are doing qualitative research and we are pleased that we can support this with our Series [We expected a wave of manuscripts on COVID-19 since we had published two Editorials on the subject. That expectation came true. We published six articles on COVID-19 but had to reject many more manuscripts. The Editorial by Athina Tatsioni et al. evaluates the reasons for these rejections .In 2021 too, authors came from many countries within and outside Europe. Like every year, each editor selected five articles that he or she found to be the most valuable . We looked at relevance for general practice , originality, methodology and possible impact on practice or research. That led to a paper on COVID-19 by Anne Holm of Copenhagen as the editors-reviewed most valuable paper of 2021 . Anne HoYou can read these and other published articles in the EJGP .Finally, we would like to express our thanks to all reviewers who advised us during 2021. We really appreciate their help! Because reviewers are just as important to us as authors, the editors also chose a reviewer who deserves to be put in the spotlight. We want to mention explicitly that the editor-in-chief has not played an active role in the selection process this year, as the best-valued reviewer of 2021 works in his department in Maastricht: Dr Piet Portegijs. Piet Portegijs is a trained general practitioner who specialised in epidemiology. He (more often) provides us with to-the-point reviews with constructive explanations and clear suggestions for the authors and editors. Thanks to people like Piet, we can do our job well.https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ejgp to modify your profile. In addition, we invite all readers of the EJGP interested in reviewing manuscripts for this Journal to visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ejgp and register as a ‘new user’, i.e. to complete the details of their expertise.Although our database of authors and reviewers steadily increases, the editors find it challenging to select referees within the Journal’s deadlines. Therefore, we sincerely hope that all reviewers want to continue their review work. Please, update your EJGP account, e.g. specify your expertise, and visit


Pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences embrace a series of different disciplines. Pharmacy practice has been defined as “the scientific discipline that studies the different aspects of the practice of pharmacy and its impact on health care systems, medicine use, and patient care”. Thus, pharmacy practice studies embrace both clinical pharmacy and social pharmacy elements. Like any other scientific discipline, clinical and social pharmacy practice disseminates research findings using scientific journals. Clinical pharmacy and social pharmacy journal editors have a role in promoting the discipline by enhancing the quality of the articles published. As has occurred in other health care areas , a group of clinical and social pharmacy practice journal editors gathered in Granada, Spain to discuss how journals could contribute to strengthening pharmacy practice as a discipline. The result of that meeting was compiled in these Granada Statements, which comprise 18 recommendations gathered into six topics: the appropriate use of terminology, impactful abstracts, the required peer reviews, journal scattering, more effective and wiser use of journal and article performance metrics, and authors' selection of the most appropriate pharmacy practice journal to submit their work. Some of the findings from previous research indicate that scholars in low-consensus fields have a more difficult time publishing, tend to persist at “re-creating the wheel”, are less successful with acquisition of extramural grants, and have a poorer outlook on research and scholarship.,,Clinical and social pharmacy practice are important research areas within Pharmaceutical Sciences,The scope of pharmacy practice has expanded over the past decades to encompass clinical, behavioral, economic, and humanistic implications of the practice of pharmacy, as well as the implementation of innovations in practice , which are often provided in collaboration with other health care professionals .,,Publication patterns and practices are one of these differential characteristics of a scientific discipline. Publishing refereed work is a hallmark of science, primarily aiming at disseminating new, advanced, and high-quality research knowledge and findings as widely as possible in a timely and efficient manner. Regardless of the scientific publishing mechanisms – which have significantly evolved over the years especially in response to technological progress,https://www.icmje.org/), which is now one of the most used standards in scholarly publishing. A similar initiative was created approximately 30 years ago for nursing with the International Academy of Nursing Editors (INANE - https://nursingeditors.com/).With the aim to identify the elements that may reinforce clinical and social pharmacy practice as a scientific discipline by consolidating common publication patterns, a group of pharmacy practice journal editors met in June 2022 in Granada, Spain. As a consequence of this meeting, a series of recommendations to improve publication patterns in pharmacy practice was created, i.e., these “Granada Statements”. This type of initiative is not unprecedented. In 1978, a group of medical journal editors gathered in Vancouver, Canada to create the Uniform Requirements to submit a paper to a medical journal. Years later, this group became the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors  and the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (https://www.guidetopharmacology.org/) are good examples of this procedure.One of the differential characteristics of disciplines with a high degree of consensus is the consistent use of precise terms to refer to each concept. Several areas have created task forces to maintain glossaries. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry  were created to classify articles and are especially important when authors do not use standardized terminology. MeSH terms have been known in pharmacy since their inception.3,,In addition to the reduced number of MeSH terms defining clinical and social pharmacy practice elements, a poor allocation of existing MeSH to pharmacy practice articles has been reported.In the recent past, allocation of MeSH terms to articles indexed in MEDLINE was a responsibility of NLM catalogers. Since the NLM announcement of the complete implementation of the Medical Text Indexer First Line indexing (MTIFL) that will select the MeSH, authors, reviewers and journal editors should take responsibility for the appropriate allocation of MeSH terms to the articles.MTIFL is an automated natural language processing system which identifies the appropriate MeSH terms from the MeSH thesaurus using only the text in article title and abstract. As stated by the NLM, after mid-2022, all articles indexed in MEDLINE will have MeSH terms allocated by MTIFL, more mechanistically rather than through human judgment/intervention. This modification of the process increases even more the relevance of the title and abstract, that in the past had a role only in summarizing the content of the article and helping potential readers to decide proceeding to the full text article.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/). Thus, if an article's title or abstract includes the exact wording of any of these descriptors or entry terms, the system will allocate the given MeSH to that article.The MTIFL system tries to match words and n-grams included in the title and the abstract not only with the MeSH term , but also with the other ‘concept terms’ associated to the descriptor, which can be easily identified as “Entry Terms” in the MeSH database  are in fact only one group of researchers acting in three different roles at different points in time.5,Studies have demonstrated that pharmacy practice authors tend to scatter their articles among a huge number of journals outside the area.Despite the existence of some meta-journals , most journals have not only precisely defined scope, but also publication priorities. For instance, in clinical and social pharmacy practice, some journals are interested in a more clinical approach, while others prefer more methodological papers, or social aspects of the practice. And for sure, any of these journals has a deeper knowledge in clinical and social pharmacy practice than any journal from other scientific areas.To ensure the effectiveness of the peer review process, reviewers should have a deep knowledge of the concepts and the recent advances in clinical and social pharmacy practice. These colleague reviewers, together with the editor-in-chief and the associate editors, possess a deep knowledge of the area and the topic of the manuscript submitted, which should result in more constructive and contributing comments that will improve the paper. These persons should also be responsible for ensuring the use of consistent terminology and that the abstracts contain the terms that will be mapped into the appropriate MeSH terms.6One of the hidden reasons why researchers tend to publish their pharmacy practice articles outside of pharmacy practice journals may be the search for higher impact metrics. Inappropriate researchers' performance assessment processes converted the “publish or perish” into an “aim high” obsessive goal for authors.,https://sfdora.org/), which issued a plea to avoid use of journal-based metrics for the assessment of individual authors' quality of papers and scientific prowess and productivity. Alternatives to journal-based metrics exist, i.e., individual-based metrics, which might sometimes be more useful to evaluate the impact of a stream of scholarship, if not the contribution of individual papers.Among several bibliometric indexes, impact metrics, such as the Impact Factor Score, have achieved an overwhelming position, or level of currency in discussing the weight or gravitas of journals.910, often including pharmacy practice journals under Pharmacology and Pharmacy,Notably, impact metrics have often underrated the scientific contribution of papers in the clinical and social pharmacy practice areas.Biomedical researchers and some librarians7Pharmacy practice and social pharmacy, themselves, are composed of a broad swath of topics. Among the signatories of the Granada Statements several different scopes or foci can be found, including but not limited to: clinical, methodological, political, social, economic, educational, behavioral, hospital-based and community-based, practitioner considerations, patient considerations, pharmacoepidemiogical issues, and many other. Submitting a clinical article to a methodologically oriented journal, or vice versa, may lead to an immediate desk rejection, regardless of the quality of the manuscript.Similar to what happens with journals from other heath areas, pharmacy practice journals have not only their preferences and interests, but also editorial board members with deep knowledge in specific sub-areas of pharmacy practice.8The journals comprising the Granada Group producing these Statements stand in unison in their endeavor to promote the quality and status of research in clinical and social pharmacy practice, as well as to advance the scientific paradigm of the discipline and broaden the impact of our respective journals to an international audience within and outside of pharmacy. The journals recognize that they are part of a larger phenomenon in health services research having much in common with journals outside of pharmacy practice, per se, yet focusing on some aspect of the medication use process. In light of the Statements offered here and in recognition of the need for the journals to recognize their commonality, assist authors with selecting the most appropriate venue to publish their work, and unite in their mission to promote all journals in the area, the Granada Group journals have agreed to a common introductory description among all. The shared description among all the Granada Group journals will then be followed by specific descriptions that then help to establish the unique niches and processes associated with each of them. The common introductory description used for all Granada Group journals is as follows.[Name of journal] is one of several journals in comportment with the Granada Statements publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed content in health services research specifically as it relates to some aspect of the medication use process. The medication use process includes but is not limited to the prescribing, preparation, dispensing, administration, adherence to, evaluation, monitoring, and outcomes associated with legend or with over-the-counter medications, incorporating the concept of clinical pharmacy which aims to optimize utilization of medicines to achieve person-centered and public health goals. The medication use process includes attitudes, perspectives, knowledge, and behaviors of any actor in this process, including prescribers, pharmacists, pharmacy personnel, other health practitioners, patients, and caregivers. As such, the Granada Group journals often refer to “pharmacy” in their title or description, as these persons are central to medication use process; however, research articles reviews, and commentaries can refer to any person involved in this process, as well as any evaluation  of the drug products themselves or systems employed to optimize the use process.The Granada Group journals share certain commonalities and also goals to improve the medication use process and the outcomes emanating from this endeavor; however, each journal has an established niche and optimally suited for certain types of manuscripts. Further description of the aims and scopes of [this journal] follows below:9The Granada Statements were created with the strong conviction that pharmacy practice is a scientific discipline that deserves reaching the high-consensus discipline category. The recommendations in these Statements aim to contribute to increase the quality of the articles that pharmacy practice researchers try to publish to disseminate their scientific contributions. At the end of the day, a scientific area and the profession behind it will benefit from the advancements published in these articles. The advancement of pharmacy practice is a conjoint responsibility between pharmacy practice researchers, peer reviewers, editors, and publishers, where scientific articles should be seen as the means to disseminate new knowledge that will improve practice.No conflict of interest.


Oxford Open Immunology, the newest immunology journal, we have given much thought to what an immunology journal needs to look like to meet the specific needs of our community in 2020 and into the future.These are unprecedented times in many ways. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have been a time of challenge and evolution for everyone, not least immunology and immunologists. Most explicitly, there has been the overwhelming clinical and scientific imperative for all to step up to the plate and put our skillset to use in the international efforts to address the infection. Along with the urgent and insatiable appetite for data in real time has come a need to rethink the terms of engagement in scientific publishing: the need to be timely, responsive and accessible and yet retain the highest academic standards and rigour. As the newly appointed Editor-in-Chief among the team at tabula rasa and build a relevant, new, journal for new times. For any unfamiliar with OUP, it is a publishing brand with an impeccable, unmatched heritage in academic publishing—its published history runs to three volumes and 2250 pages. OUP is the second oldest academic publisher and the largest University Press in the world. OUP now publishes more than 450 academic journals, with a publishing presence in more than 100 countries.The launch of a new immunology journal for the Oxford University Press (OUP) collection is an opportunity to start with a So, building on that incredible tradition, the challenge now is to deliver a vibrant new journal that can satisfy unmet needs for the research community. What could these unmet needs be if there are already greater than 150 immunology journals in existence? Many of the current benchmarks indeed cut across several immunology journals: we all now look for a journal that will be fully open access and compliant with DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) guidelines, which will be truly accessible, rapidly responsive, fair and genuinely international without attachment to any individual immunology research community or to native-English speakers.With the international scope in mind, we have a core team of associate editors based in the UK, USA and China, and are assembling an outstanding, multi-disciplinary editorial board, covering immunology across some 14 countries. Most all, we are keen that the passions and skillset of those at the journal must be in tune with the emergent questions and studies out there in the community. All of the traditional, core topics of cellular subsets, functions, regulation, antibody, cytokine and complement characterization, disease studies and infection will need to be accompanied by developing areas and newer technologies including single cell and structural biology approaches, informatics and artificial intelligence, imaging and mass cytometry. If you have ideas for areas you would like to see included, I urge you to get in touch.Having spent greater than 20 years as an editor at various immunology journals, I have observed the changing trends in immunology publishing and have also had the good fortune to make many lasting friends in the course of commissioning review articles. Outstanding review articles will here form an important part of our content. We are all ever busier and groan when invitations pop up in the inbox asking for yet another review article, so what are they for and why say ‘yes?’ Think of your favourite review articles in your field and the answer will be clear. A great review article is far more than a me-too repackaging of recently published papers. At best, these pieces are where we do our real thinking, with the expanse to apply some genuine brain-wattage to synthesis of what has been happening, how it fits together and where we should be heading. We welcome submissions from all who are excited at the thought of rising to this challenge.magnum opus, resulting from the combined efforts of dozens of people working for several years. While that is important and laudable, we also want to be able to offer a home to the first publications of the enthusiastic grad student or post-doc who has written a really useful piece of code to solve a problem in data set handling, or who has a new trick for immunophenotyping in small samples or multiplexing peptide panels.With the space and immediacy of our online identity, we are well-placed to respond to these fast-moving times for immunology and the associated technologies. For my taste, some of the most vibrant areas are the online chatrooms where new strategies are thrashed out, whether for high-dimensional flow analysis, NGS informatics or microbiota pathway analysis. Our aim is to instil a sense of working with the international research community by offering a single home in which to find key protocols, methodologies, debate and discussion. So, much of immunology publishing now comprises the The least we can do is offer to supply a scientist-led, welcoming experience where we will aim to deal efficiently, fairly and honestly with your precious data and manuscripts. Please send them in. As many generations of students have heard in my lab meetings, a scientist who does experiments and then leaves them festering, unpublished in their lab notebook is no different to a baker who gets up to bake bread but then does not get around to feeding anyone with it. Get in touch!


I am an advocate of open‐access publishing and the broad and inclusive reach it engenders. Open‐access publishing can transform scientific discourse by taking full advantage of the online platform. I was honored to be nominated and the selected as Editor‐in‐Chief by the search committee. It is a tremendous opportunity to serve the broader scientific community.Crislyn: The FASEB organization is well recognized in the biological and biomedical science communities as the largest US biomedical coalition, representing 28 societies and well over 100,000 researchers. I recollect learning about FASEB's high repute as a graduate student. So, in 2020, I gladly accepted the invitation to serve as Associate Editor of their newly launched open‐access journal, FASEB BioAdvances provides a unique publication platform for the rapid dissemination of high‐quality research papers with a wide coverage. As an Editor‐in‐Chief of FASEB BioAdvances, I will have the privilege to read exciting scientific discoveries and advancements contributed by colleagues around the world. Additionally, I will have a great opportunity to work closely with a superb team of editors and editorial office staff, with a common goal of elevating the quality and impact of the journal within the biomedical community.Yung: Modern‐day science has become increasingly multidisciplinary in nature, and this is especially true in biological and biomedical research. Seminal discoveries through interdisciplinary research will undoubtedly be needed to address complex biomedical challenges of the 21st century. 3FASEB BioAdvances become a trusted venue for open‐access publishing in the biological and biomedical sciences. We are hoping to develop a journal editorial structure that is as diverse as the research community it represents, both scientifically and demographically. Over the past decade or so, we have seen a shift in the overall approach to life science innovation and discovery. This shift is driven by the need to address real‐world challenges, solutions to which require us to cut across siloed disciplines, transform existing disciplines, and generate new ones. The scope of FASEB BioAdvances provides an online platform for the dissemination of scholarship at both the frontiers of life science disciplines and also those that cut across boundaries. We will add that since FASEB is a recognized collective policy voice of biological and biomedical researchers, so we will continue to publish perspectives and opinion pieces on the broader issues affecting academia and biomedical education, science, and society.A major motivation and reward for us as editors would be to see the journal grow with increasing quality and impact and have a global reach. We would like to see 4FASEB BioAdvances and thus have an inherent sense of affiliation with the journal. We are extremely proud to be working in tandem with an outstanding group of scientists on our board. Our editorial team reflects a balanced global representation of the leadership in biological and biomedical science. Our editorial staff are highly experienced and committed to the success of this promising journal. We also enjoy a strong partnership with The FASEB Journal. Together, we aim to have a global impact by publishing the highest‐quality research from researchers around the world, while working hard to embrace the value of diversity and inclusion at all levels of the journal.Both of us had previously served as Associate Editors of 5Given our prior Associate Editor appointments, we both have insights into the workings of the journal. As EICs, it has been both helpful and enjoyable to be able to share and bounce ideas off each other as we strategically plan for the future. We are located in different parts of the world, so in addition to our shared interests as scientists, we each bring unique perspectives to the table. We have regular virtual meetings, often alongside the Director of Publications, and have developed a working relationship that ensures seamless management and sharing of responsibilities.6FASEB BioAdvances, we aim to provide authors with the highest standard of manuscript review, editing, and publishing, as well as to expedite the processing of submitted manuscripts. We have started to revamp our website so as to facilitate navigation by readers and authors. As mentioned earlier, we recognize the value of ensuring that our journal represents the diverse biomedical research being conducted across the globe. Hence, we are expanding the composition of our Editorial Board and Associate Editors to encompass broader expertise and geographical representation. We expect that all these changes will appeal to a broader range of readers.We recognize the importance authors place on high‐quality and unbiased peer review conducted in a timely manner. In the next development phase of 7The FASEB Journal and FASEB BioAdvances, which are associated with or run by scientific societies, are justifiably highly regarded by researchers in their respective disciplines. Nonetheless, with intense competition from traditional and open‐access journals, ensuring a rapid and unbiased review with constructive comments for the authors is no trivial task that our editors and staff have to handle on a daily basis.There are several, but we will mention only a few here. The global research community is facing tremendous pressure to publish, as scientific publications have become the primary evaluation criteria for academic promotions and career advancement. Academic publishing, which relies on robust peer review at its core, is at risk with the alarming rise in sham or predatory platforms. Shifting standards of research communication, metrics, and rankings have created more space for predatory academic practices to take root and even flourish. Nowadays, impactful biomedical research often requires the amalgamation of diverse expertise to address complex biological questions, a feat that not every established researcher can attain with ease, let alone those who are at the early stages of their academic careers. Concurrently, the increasing level of sophistication in cutting‐edge high‐end instrumentation and their costs—for example, cryo‐electron microscopes—present a separate set of challenges in many parts of the world. To address these issues, collaboration between research groups is fast becoming the norm. Since journal publications remain the most important media for dissemination of scientific information, it is vital for researchers to have access to reputable scientific journals where they can publish their findings. Journals like 8FASEB BioAdvances is a fully open‐access journal and is open to submissions from anyone, independent of a connection to the Federation and its societies. Second, there are multiple avenues for publishing. In addition to reporting new research findings, we also publish reviews on timely subjects or perspectives that make a case for a new idea or support for an old one. Articles in our Special Collections series are good examples. Finally, the journal commits to providing a fair and robust peer‐review process, rapid handling, presently averaging 22 days, and the broadest dissemination of content. FASEB BioAdvances eliminates as many barriers as possible so that authors are empowered to decide how they want to share their work, while also following the best practices in open‐access publishing.We highlight three here. First, FASEB is a recognized brand. The organization that has been in place for over a century and represents one of the most important alliances in the biological sciences, with its broad spectrum of constituent societies. We note, however, that


As patient online access to electronic health records becomes the standard, implementation of access for adolescents and parents varies across providers, regions, and countries. There is currently no international compilation of evidence to guide policy decisions in matters such as age limit for access and the extent of parent proxy access.This paper presents the protocol for a scoping review of different stakeholders’ (including but not limited to end users) perspectives on use, opinions, and experiences pertaining to online access to electronic health records by parents, children, and adolescents.This scoping review will be conducted according to the Arksey and O’Malley framework. Several databases will be used to conduct a literature search , in addition to literature found outside of these databases. All authors will participate in screening identified papers, following the research question: How do different stakeholders experience parents’, children’s, and adolescents’ online access to the electronic health records of children and adolescents? Data abstraction will include but will not be limited to publication type, publication year, country, sample characteristics, setting, study aim, research question, and conclusions. The data to be analyzed are from publicly available secondary sources, so this study does not require an ethics review.The results from this scoping review will be presented in a narrative form, and additional data on study characteristics will be presented in diagrams or tabular format. This scoping review protocol was first initiated by Uppsala University in June 2021 as part of the NordForsk-funded research project NORDeHEALTH. The results are expected to be presented in a scoping review in June 2022. The results will be disseminated through stakeholder meetings, scientific conference presentations, oral presentations to the public, and publication in a peer-reviewed journal.This is, to our knowledge, the first study to map the literature on the use and experiences of parents’ and adolescents’ online access to the electronic health records of children and adolescents. The findings will describe what benefits and risks have been experienced by different stakeholders so far in different countries. A mapping of studies could inform the design and implementation of future regulations around access to patient-accessible electronic health records.DERR1-10.2196/36158 Digitalized health records, also called electronic health records (EHRs), contain clinical information  and are used by health care professionals. Technological advancements have enabled patients to read their EHRs via online patient portals, often called patient-accessible EHRs (PAEHRs), quickly and easily, which promotes patient empowerment. It appears that PAEHRs are becoming the standard -5, as anAs PAEHRs continue to be implemented worldwide, vast uncertainty remains in the area of access by parents, children, and adolescents . This isFor the most part, PAEHRs have been investigated for the general adult population. Effects of PAEHRs are not conclusive, yet indicate benefits including improved medication adherence and self-care, as well as improved relationships between patients and their physicians ,10,11. HThe objective of the proposed scoping review is to identify, categorize, and summarize knowledge about different stakeholders’  use and experiences of PAEHR access for parents, children, and adolescents. Countries are currently at different stages of development and implementation of PAEHRs; therefore, compiling the literature is timely and has, to our knowledge, not yet been undertaken. This scoping review is anticipated to aid policy-makers in designing future regulations around PAEHR access for parents and adolescents, and to potentially improve the design and implementation of PAEHRs to meet the needs of end users.A scoping review will be conducted using the Arksey and O’Malley  frameworThrough discussion among research team members, the main research question is: How do different stakeholders experience parents’, children’s, and adolescents’ online access to the electronic health records of children and adolescents? We do not limit the question only to children’s and adolescents’ or parents’ experiences but also include other relevant stakeholders including health care professionals and policy-makers. For this review, PAEHR access is defined as access provided via an online patient portal that can encompass the entire electronic record or parts of it . The practice of “open notes” is included in the concept of EHR access ,23, refeThe literature search will be carried out by an experienced research librarian at Uppsala University. The search strategy, presented in The scientific literature will be systematically compiled and the selection will be inclusive, striving to encompass publications and reports that employ a variety of methodologies. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are informed by the review process and will be applied at the study selection stage.Studies will be included if they meet the following criteria:Patient user population: parents, children, and adolescentsPopulation studied: parents, children, adolescents, and health care professionalsOutcomes: use, implementation, and experiences of access or proxy access to PAEHRsStudy design: all study typesStudies will be excluded if they:Are not written in EnglishWere published outside the study periodDo not focus on PAEHRsThe research team will identify eligibility criteria and search terms. A software program, Rayyan , will beStudy characteristics will be identified by the research team and extracted into the Excel spreadsheet created in stage 3. Characteristics will include but will not be limited to publication type, publication year, country, sample characteristics, setting, study aim, research question, and conclusions. All researchers will be able to contribute to the spreadsheet. Ideas emerging during the process will be discussed among the authors in regular meetings set up by the main author.Results reported in the included studies will be compiled and read multiple times. Results will then be analyzed independently by 2 researchers (JH and MH) using thematic analysis . In thisBecause consultation can provide additional information and insights , the resAs the scoping review methodology consists of reviewing publicly available materials only, this study is not subject to ethical approval.The main results of our analysis will be presented in a narrative form focusing on research results to date regarding different stakeholders’ experiences of providing children and adolescents and their parents with online access to their EHRs. Additional data on year, country, study design, study population, and setting will be presented in diagrams or tabular format. This scoping review protocol was first initiated by Uppsala University in June 2021 as part of the NordForsk-funded research project NORDeHEALTH. We expect the results to be presented in a scoping review in June 2022.The results from this scoping review will aim to inform a variety of stakeholders, including policy- and decision-makers, vendors, designers of patient portals and PAEHRs, and perhaps most importantly, end-user representatives. We aim to describe the benefits and risks experienced by different stakeholders so far in different countries. This knowledge may improve both the design and implementation of future PAEHRs to become more useful to the population, and also guide policy-makers and other decision-makers to provide the right preconditions for future implementations. In both Sweden and Estonia, the current patient portals are being redesigned, and there may be opportunities to influence both portal design and policy development. Therefore, results will be communicated outside the traditional scientific publications, through, for example, seminars and reports focusing specifically on the context in Sweden and Estonia. Results that are of interest to parents, adolescents, and health care professionals  will be shared in more easily accessible formats like social media communications, popular science publications, and presentations for practitioners. We hope that this may have a direct impact on how record access is used by health care professionals, parents, and adolescents to increase potential benefits and minimize any risks.To date, several literature reviews have been performed regarding PAEHRs or open notes in general ,27,28, b


There are long-standing concerns that scientific institutions, which often rely on peer review to select the best projects, tend to select conservative ones and thereby discourage novel research. Using peer review data from 49 journals in the life and physical sciences, we examined whether less novel manuscripts were likelier to be accepted for publication. Measuring the novelty of manuscripts as atypical combinations of journals in their reference lists, we found no evidence of conservatism. Across journals, more novel manuscripts were more likely to be accepted, even when peer reviewers were similarly enthusiastic. The findings suggest that peer review is not inherently conservative, and help explain why researchers continue to do novel work. Cell and Cell Reports and 6,785 manuscripts submitted in 2018 to 47 journals published by the Institute of Physics Publishing. Following previous work that found that a balance of novel and conventional ideas predicts citation impact, we measure the novelty and conventionality of manuscripts by the atypicality of combinations of journals in their reference lists, taking the 90th percentile most atypical combination as “novelty” and the 50th percentile as “conventionality.” We find that higher novelty is consistently associated with higher acceptance; submissions in the top novelty quintile are 6.5 percentage points more likely than bottom quintile ones to get accepted. Higher conventionality is also associated with acceptance (+16.3% top–bottom quintile difference). Disagreement among peer reviewers was not systematically related to submission novelty or conventionality, and editors select strongly for novelty even conditional on reviewers' recommendations (+7.0% top–bottom quintile difference). Manuscripts exhibiting higher novelty were more highly cited. Overall, the findings suggest that journal peer review favors novel research that is well situated in the existing literature, incentivizing exploration in science and challenging the view that peer review is inherently antinovelty.There are long-standing concerns that peer review, which is foundational to scientific institutions like journals and funding agencies, favors conservative ideas over novel ones. We investigate the association between novelty and the acceptance of manuscripts submitted to a large sample of scientific journals. The data cover 20,538 manuscripts submitted between 2013 and 2018 to the journals  Much of modern science occurs within institutions; universities house researchers, funding agencies fund their work, and journals publish their findings. By allocating resources like money and attention, the institutions set the incentives that help determine which projects researchers pursue , 3. ProjNature selects manuscripts in part on whether the “results seem novel, arresting ” ” .Yet, accounts from many insiders paint a different picture , 15. TheAdjudicating between mission statements and insider accounts is important not only for understanding what types of projects researchers are actually incentivized to pursue at various stages of the research pipeline, but also for administrators to identify organizational levers that can shift these incentives when needed , 20.This paper has two aims. First, it aims to systematically identify the incentives for novel vs. conservative research in a particularly important context—publishing. Put simply, are novel papers harder to publish? The journal in which a paper appears continues to be the key signal of its importance , and in Elsevier data cover 20,538 manuscripts submitted between 2013 and 2018 to the journals Cell and Cell Reports, both of which are published by Elsevier's subsidiary Cell Press and focus on the life sciences. The IOP data cover 6,785 manuscripts submitted in 2018 to its 47 physical sciences journals. In our analyses, we pool these datasets together into the “pooled dataset” and analyze them separately as “IOP,” “Cell,” and “Cell Reports.”We address this first aim using the review files of manuscripts submitted to a sample of 49 peer-reviewed academic journals. These data were obtained through separate agreements with the publishing companies Elsevier and the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) . This process yields for each manuscript a distribution of z-scores, one for each possible journal pair. Following ref. z-scores, which is the part of the distribution likely to contain the paper’s most novel contributions. Additionally, we define “conventionality” as the 50th percentile z-score from this distribution, reflecting how well the mass of the distribution is embedded in the existing literature. For interpretability, we reverse code novelty , so that higher values indicate higher novelty. Lastly, we convert novelty and conventionality z-scores into percentiles, calculated separately for manuscripts in the life sciences and physics datasets, yielding final conventionality and novelty measures that range from 0 to 100, where a novelty of 100 denotes a manuscript with many extremely novel journal combinations and a conventionality of 100 denotes one where the bulk of combinations is extremely common. We distinguish this measure from quality and other potential confounds using additional controls , and the key variables inovelty and iconventionality are measured either as percentiles  or quintiles . The jjournal indicator is a fixed effect for the journal to which the manuscript was submitted and captures stable journal-specific factors  that affect acceptance. To better isolate novelty from confounding factors, we include in the specification a number of manuscript- and author-level covariates captured by the vector ijX. The focal and control variables are described in Cell, Cell Reports, and IOP. We estimate these regressions for the pooled sample and each of the three datasets separately using only the controls available in all datasets in the pooled regression and all dataset-specific controls in the dataset-specific regressions. Our preferred specification divides inovelty and iconventionality into quintiles to identify possible nonlinearities, which previous research has found  and use it to predict acceptance . Results from these alternative analyses are qualitatively consistent to the one below.P < 0.001). The average acceptance rate in the pooled data is 32%, so 5.9 represents a substantial premium above this baseline. The differences are even more pronounced for conventionality, where relative to the least conventional quintile, the most conventional quintile is accepted 19.9 percentage points more .In the pooled dataset, higher novelty is significantly associated with higher acceptance, and likewise for conventionality. The differences in acceptance are substantial: relative to manuscripts in the lowest quintile of novelty, those in the top quintile are accepted 5.9 percentage points more . That association is 0.1% (n.s.) at Cell, 4.4% at Cell Reports (P < 0.001) and +0.14% at IOP (n.s.) . This negative albeit nonuniversal association between the number of unique journals referenced and acceptance may be related to previous studies finding poorer evaluations of interdisciplinary research .To better understand why novelty is broadly selected for, we disaggregate the review process into three stages: desk review, external peer review (if not desk rejected), and final review. For each stage, we estimate separate ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions for the pooled data and each of the three datasets. The SI Appendix, Table S11 and alternative specifications shown in SI Appendix, Table S12.Estimates from these regressions are displayed in SI Appendix, Table S11, models 1, 4, 7, and 8). The pooled sample shows that relative to the bottom quintile of novelty, papers in the top quintile are sent out for review 5.6% more often . The positive association is strongest at Cell, where top-quintile papers are sent out for review 14.5% more often. The results are directionally consistent across datasets, although in the physics sample, the top-quintile estimate of 4% is not statistically significant .P < 0.001). However, the association is negative at Cell, where the top-quintile conventionality papers are sent out 10.2% less than the bottom-quintile ones.In the pooled sample, papers in the top quintile of conventionality are sent out 14.6% more often .For each reviewer’s recommendation in the initial review round, we define an indicator IOP journals, top-quintile novelty papers are 5.8% more likely than bottomquintile ones to receive a positive recommendation . In the same journals, top–conventionality quintile papers are 5.7% more likely than bottom-quintile ones to receive a positive recommendation . We thus conclude that the relationship between novelty, conventionality, and peer reviewers’ recommendations is weaker than that among editors’ desk decisions, although there is some evidence that the two types of decisions are directionally consistent, favoring papers high in novelty and conventionality.In the pooled dataset, reviewers’ recommendations are not strongly associated with novelty or conventionality. However, among the SI Appendix, Table S11, models 3, 6, and 10). The specifications include the variable reviewer.enthusiasm, the mean of positive.review indicators, in order to control for paper quality. There is no curve for Cell Reports because our dataset lacked reviewer recommendations.P < 0.001). The pattern is most pronounced at Cell, where the top–quintile novelty advantage is 18.1% (P < 0.001).The patterns show that at this final stage, journal editors select more novel papers, even conditional on peer reviewer enthusiasm. In the pooled dataset, editors accept top–quintile novelty papers 7.0% more than bottom-quintile ones .Conventionality is less strongly associated with editors’ final decisions. In the P < 0.001 at Cell desk review to +0.015, P < 0.05 at IOP final review), but with the exception of the final review at IOP, all coefficients are negative.A high number of unique journals referenced is generally associated with lower success across the evaluation pipeline. The magnitude of the associations and their statistical significance varies  novelty–quality trade-off, 2) novelty and disagreement, and 3) cognitive and strategic biases, and all posit that novelty is selected against. Our data challenge these mechanisms and instead, point to the straightforward mechanism 4) novelty and impact, which posits that novelty is selected for.Novelty and quality are distinct concepts, where the former is usually considered one of several dimensions of the latter , 58, 59.First, we consider reviewer recommendations as a proxy of quality. SI Appendix, Table S13 shows estimates from negative binomial models predicting citations after 1 y (models 1 to 3) and 5 y (models 4 to 6). Five-year citations are available for a much smaller set of submissions and only from the Cell and Cell Reports datasets. However, the more available short-term citations may understate the ultimate impact of novelty, which may have delayed recognition . Conventionality is negatively associated with 1-y citations , but the direction of the association is sensitive to the inclusion of controls. In the smaller set of submissions with 5-y citations, novelty and conventionality are both negatively associated with citations, with both associations sensitive to controls. Overall, the data do not provide robust evidence of lower citation impact of novel work.Novelty is positively associated with 1-y citations .Another mechanism hypothesized to drive novelty acceptance is that more novel submissions create more disagreement among reviewers, but selective journals nearly require a consensus of positive reviews, leading them to reject novelty . We testfication . Fig. 3 The figure shows that the reviewer disagreement is statistically similar across all novelty and conventionality quintiles. Thus, novelty acceptance is unlikely to be driven by differential disagreement and a near-requirement of consensus.Cell, show a substantial preference for novelty. These data suggest that cognitive bias against novelty is unlikely to play a major role in these selections. Similarly, the strategic bias mechanisms posit that reviewers, but not editors, should disfavor novel submissions, which may pose a threat to their own ideas. While The cognitive and strategic bias mechanism posits that higher-novelty submissions receive more negative evaluations. Max Planck, the celebrated physicist and Nobel Prize winner, articulated a common, if pessimistic, view of scientific institutions.A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it  is consistently disfavored by editors and reviewers. This pattern may be related to work on grant review evaluations showing a disfavoring of interdisciplinary projects , 57, altCell Reports reviewers. These data would have strengthened (or weakened) our concussions about editor discretion, novelty, and disagreement. Second, we relied primarily on novelty and conventionality that were calculated from references in the published versions of the submitted papers, not the submitted versions. Because many rejected papers could not be linked to their ultimately published versions, we could not calculate novelty for them and excluded them from most analyses. In a subset of papers submitted to Cell for which we had the originally submitted versions, the correlation between the submitted and published measures was high . Furthermore, in that subset, novelty at submission was predictive of acceptance . We believe these results make it unlikely that our results are severely biased by missing data on rejected papers.This paper is not without limitations that we hope can be addressed in future work. Two of these limitations concern data availability. First, our data did not include peer reviews from Second, the study uses quantitative measures of complex constructs, like novelty and quality, and our understanding of these measures is evolving –63. FurtCell editors against conventionality at the desk review stage. While our data could rule out some mechanisms, more is needed to rule mechanisms in. For example, editors of top journals may favor novelty and disfavor conventionality to differentiate the journals from competitors or because their audiences are more tolerant of both . Such contextual research is needed to advance theory and make our work more directly applicable to specific organizations. Lastly, although this work uses a substantial sample of journals from the life and physical sciences, data from other fields would help increase generalizability.Third, more research is needed to understand heterogeneity in journals’ responses to novelty and conventionality, such as the preference of  of both . On the Given the voluminous literature advancing that view that peer review is biased against novelty, it is important to consider what may account for our disparate conclusion. First, it is possible that previous work was affected by selection biases. For example, case studies of peer review tend to focus on instances where it failed to properly value novel work , 35, notex ante review  but for it in ex post review . For an idea to change evaluators’ beliefs, those beliefs must be predisposed against it initially. In ex ante review, creators of the idea lack a mechanism by which to persuade appropriately skeptical reviewers. In ex post review, they have that persuasion mechanism—the results of the research.Lastly, a model by Gross and Bergstrom  providesIn sum, our results illuminate conservatism in science, showing that it is unlikely to be caused by institutions using a selection method — peer review — that is inherently biased against novelty. The exact format in which peer review is deployed, and whether in early or late stages, may still contribute to conservatism, but it is important for future research to also consider other drivers.We use three datasets provided by Cell Press and Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP).Cell Press) datasets cover 17,504 submissions to Cell and 13,905 submissions to Cell Reports between 2013 and 2018. These data are supplemented with bibliometric data from the Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG), accessed in June 2019. MAG is among the largest and most widely used bibliometric databases , resulting in a smaller dataset actually used in the analysis, which we call the “analytic sample.” Additionally, we excluded from the analytic sample 1) 180 submissions known to be commissioned by the editors, as these likely had an atypical evaluation process , and 2) 414 submissions terminated during the evaluation or publication process. The analytic sample consists of 8,435 submissions to Cell and 12,103 submissions to Cell Reports. A comparison of the full and analytic samples on key covariates is presented in SI Appendix .The Elsevier . Editors of both journals first evaluate submissions at the “desk” before deciding whether to send them out to peer reviewers and desk reject a substantial number of submissions. Reviewer instructions are similar, and both journals use a standard commercial editorial software. Interviews with editors indicate that papers are reviewed by similar numbers and types of reviewers, with the caveat that Cell or published elsewhere and successfully located by a third-party contractor. The contractor used the submission title and author information to locate submissions rejected and published elsewhere. Of the 17,509 submissions, 10,454 (59.7%) were successfully matched to a DOI. The unmatched submissions were primarily those rejected by Cell, of which 46.1% were unmatched, whereas of the accepted submissions, only 4.9% were unmatched. Overall, the analytic sample is missing about half of the rejected submissions.The data include all submissions between 2013 and 2018, including the document object identifier (DOI) for manuscripts that were ultimately published in The DOI was then used to collect additional data on the submissions from MAG. These additional data include author productivity, paper topics, paper citations, and novelty.Cell data include peer review recommendations for manuscripts that were sent out for external review. A manuscript can be reviewed by several referees and over several rounds of review. In our analyses, we focus on the first review rounds only.The data also include a number of original submission files, including the PDF or Word file of the main manuscript. Although we rely on the published versions of submissions in the analysis, we use this smaller sample to estimate the degree to which the published versions depart from the submitted ones .We impute the missing years of submission for accepted papers by using the years of publication  and subtracting the median time to publication estimated from the more complete data for Cell submissions for which we have both submitted and published manuscript versions to track how our key manuscript characteristic—novelty—changed. The analysis presented in SI Appendix, Submitted vs. Published Versions shows that the correlation between submitted and published novelty, measured in percentiles, is +0.75. Conventionality shows an equally strong correlation. Additionally, we use the subset with novelty at submission to predict acceptance, finding the results consistent with novelty at publication . These similarities support relying on published novelty as a reasonable but imperfect proxy for submitted novelty.Many of the key variables in our analysis come from MAG, which contains data primarily on published papers. In particular, to calculate novelty and conventionality, we use reference lists from the papers’ published versions. A limitation of using papers' published rather than submitted versions is that some of their characteristics, like novelty, may change during the review process. There are several reasons to believe that this limitation does not affect our analysis substantively. First, a number of studies across a number of fields find that the core content of manuscripts tends to change little from submission to publication, with most changes occurring in framing , 68, tonIOP, one of the world’s largest publishers, which one analysis found to account for nearly 10% of papers indexed in the Web of Science in 2013 . The analytic sample used in the analyses consisted of 6,785 papers. SI Appendix, Table S8 shows the number of submissions in the analytic sample by journal. The journals varied in 2018 impact factor, ranging from 2D Materials with an impact factor of 7.343 to European Journal of Physics with an impact factor of 0.861, and a few newer journals did not yet have an impact factor.Review data on physics journals were provided by the  in 2013 . These dIOP submission data provide the DOIs for all accepted papers, which we located in MAG if they were indexed. For rejected submissions, we searched the title of the paper in the OpenAlex database , but they are in practice cocited infrequently and therefore, have low ijkobserved. This case occurs when two journals are both prominent and often cited, but they are far from each other in conceptual space and are infrequently cocited. Intuitively, we expect that cociting such journals corresponds to an atypical, or novel, conceptual intervention.AC is defined at the journal-pair-year level; AC for two journals in a given year is measured by comparing its observed cocitation frequency across all papers published that year with those expected from the following null model. In the null model, journal–journal citations are rewired at random, with the constraint that the number of outgoing and incoming citations remains constant . Specifically,k set to the submission year. We follow the Uzzi et al. , and we depart from ref. This method gives each submission a distribution of ACs, one for each journal pair in its reference list, and year i et al.  paper inIOP submissions. Consequently, we use author reputation data only in the Cell and CellReports analyses. Second, we use peer reviewer enthusiasm measured via reviewers’ recommendations, with one equal to accept or revise and resubmit and zero equal to reject. Third, we use 1- and 5-y citations.To distinguish novelty and quality, we rely on three proxies for quality. First, we use authors’ reputations, measured as the number of publications in total and in the journals to which they have submitted. These data were missing for the majority of To distinguish novelty, which is based on combinations of journals, from the quantity of those journals, we measure the number of unique journals as manuscript references. We normalize this number by the number of references overall to account for different reference list lengths between manuscript types or topical areas. Controlling for this measure addresses the concern that a high number of unique journals referenced in a submission may generate atypical journal combinations purely mechanically. Indeed, the correlation between novelty and the number of unique journals in our data is +0.50. Using both measures thus helps isolate the effects of novelty conceptually and statistically.Cell Press datasets only. Key words were especially important for the Cell Press journals due to their broad scope.  MAG provides a list of key words for each paper with associated confidence scores between zero and one. For each journal, we focused on the most common key words, specifically those used by at least 500 submitted papers (accepted and rejected). There are 13 and 26 such key words for Cell and Cell Reports, respectively. Each key word was used as a continuous variable in the regression, taking on the value of the key word's confidence score for that paper.Topic choice may affect acceptance of scientific works . We sought to control for research topics using keywords, which we were able to do in the Cell Press journals only: last author's number of total previous publications and previous publications at Cell or Cell Reports up to the submission year (The journals in all three datasets use single-blind reviewing. Consequently, author information may influence editors’ and reviewers’ perception of manuscript quality directly , 75 or iion year .Supplementary File


The Clinical Respiratory Journal is becoming Open Access from its first issue of 2022. This means that all articles accepted for publication will be published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). This permits use, distribution and reproduction of the article in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. It means that all the content of CRJ articles will be free of charge to the user, but also means that all articles will be subject to an article publication charge (APC) to cover the cost of publishing.Whilst authors may think this could be a barrier to getting their work published, it is in fact an exciting platform that will facilitate greater access to CRJ papers and a wider audience as a result. Experience has shown that when a journal becomes open access, it increases the visibility of the authors' work and the journal's impact. For authors who have difficulties paying the APC, there are policies to support them. APC waivers are provided to authors in Research4Life countries and eligible institutions that have signed a Transitional Deal with the publisher, Wiley.Currently, a potential journal reader must depend on the title and abstract to make a judgement about whether they need to read the paper, but whilst the CRJ tries to ensure that the title and abstract are informative, they only provide a narrow window into the paper's contents. The reader will not see a very illustrative figure or read a thought‐provoking interpretation of the results. With Open Access, they can immediately see the full contents. Since September, we have already asked authors of original articles, review articles, brief reports and mini reviews to submit a graphical abstract during initial submission; this includes an image and brief introduction to the key information and findings of the paper. These can help users locate papers of interest when they browse our Table of Contents.These developments provide an opportunity to think about the position of the CRJ as a clinically focussed general respiratory journal, when so many subspecialty journals are now available. We believe that it still has an important role to fulfil demands from the general pulmonologist and respiratory medical researcher. One only has to look at the major specialty journals and see that there may be only one paper from a specific sub‐specialty such as asthma and, in some months, none at all. Yet an asthma specialist still reads the journal, and the reason is simple—respiratory medicine is more than a collection of unrelated sub‐specialties. The very great majority of pulmonologists are not super‐specialists who are only interested in the latest cutting‐edge research.CRJ's editorial philosophy is to publish papers that may have an impact on medical practice and clinical research now, or in the not‐too‐distant future. Occasionally, a basic science paper is published because it may provide a long‐term perspective view of new and important developments in the future, but CRJ is not usually the natural home for such papers. Journal editors have two main roles—as journalists to identify new and interesting developments and as scientists to ensure that they publish reliable peer‐reviewed research and evidence. Research papers are of two kinds, one reports brand new and innovative findings, but these are relative rare; the others are studies that test the reliability and generalisability of previously reported findings. That type of paper is extremely important; one only has to look at any meta‐analysis and see the degree of heterogeneity between studies. All findings need to be tested and replicated—something that is fundamental to the scientific process. At the same time, no one wants to read replicate ‘me too’ studies of the same topic. CRJ will, of course, publish papers that help confirm the reliability of previous findings, but at the same time, such papers also need to add their own original contribution that will advance insights into that area of medicine.a priori questions about feasibility. CRJ is interested in proper pilot studies because they are looking to the future.Editors and reviewers make important decisions, but they are human and like the reassurance of familiarity. It sometimes takes courage to publish a paper that seems ‘way out’ of current thinking, even if the methodology and science look sound. The CRJ is prepared to make that decision, if the methodology looks strong, knowing that the findings will need to be tested in further studies. Pilot studies may come in that category, but ‘pilot’ does not mean small and underpowered, it means that the study is designed to test the feasibility of a bigger definitive study. It should be set up to answer specific Published its 1500th paper in 2021.Became online‐only and bi‐monthly publishing in 2016.Started publishing monthly in 2018 so that authors could publish their research findings as early as possible.Impact factor reached 2.57.Migrated to new and more author‐friendly submission system—ReX.Implemented image checking during peer review to ensure scientific integrity.We believe that moving to Open Access will help us perform even better for our authors and our readers.Over the last few years, the CRJ has made significant strides:


Microbial electrochemical systemshttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2020.00044/fullThis systematic review article provides a broad and historical description of microbial electrochemical systems.Enzyme and microbial electrochemistryhttps://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsmeasuresciau.2c00042This tutorial review focuses on the interactions between enzymes, microbes and electrodes. It also covers electroanalytical methods.Microbial fuel cellshttps://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry‐genetics‐and‐molecular‐biology/microbial‐fuel‐cellThis page contains a compendium of journal articles, books and book chapters dealing with microbial fuel cells.Microbially‐based green electronicshttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167779920303309Some microbes produce nanometer‐diameter protein strands that conduct electricity. This report describes their being examined for potential incorporation into electronic devices.Bioelectrosynthesishttps://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978‐3‐030‐03299‐9The link is to a book on electrochemical biosensors, biosynthesis, bioleaching, artificial photosynthesis and other related topics.Electrobiotechnologyhttps://dechema‐dfi.de/en/Topics+_+Projects/Electro+biotechnology.htmlThis site describes a large number of research projects related to the field of electro biotechnology.Microbial electrochemical technologieshttps://www.water.imdea.org/scientific‐infrastructure/pilot‐plants/microbial‐electrochemical‐technologiesThis page describes lab scale and field bioreactors that use microbial electrochemistry for projects such as wastewater treatment and the removal of pollutants.Increasing electrical conductivity in bacteriahttps://phys.org/news/2023‐01‐bacteria‐generated‐nanowires‐soil‐oceans.htmlThis publication describes bacteria that transmit current through protein nanowires and how a dramatic increase in conductivity can be generated by light.Microbial electrochemistry terminologyhttps://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=4704024707debc15e61af0f60800ef8664c639d1This article introduces terminology and classification systems that derives from the interfacing of microbiology and electrochemistry.The International Society for Microbial Electrochemistry and Technology (ISMET)https://is‐met.orgISMET is an international society that links researchers working in different fields of science and engineering to consider questions related to microorganisms and electrodes.Microbial electrochemistry for bioremediationhttps://www.electra.site/wp‐content/uploads/2020/06/No.6‐paper.pdfThis article provides a review of biolectrochemical systems that are focused on bioremediation applications.


Asian/Pacific Island Nursing Journal (APINJ). Created to fill the gap between nursing science and behavioral/social sciences, APINJ offers a forum for empirical, theoretical, and methodological issues related to Asian American and Pacific Islander ethnic and cultural values and beliefs as well as the biological and physiological phenomena that can affect nursing care. APINJ serves as a voice for nursing and other health care providers for research, education, and practice. APINJ is included in PubMed, PubMed Central, the Directory of Open Access Journals, and Scopus. As an open access journal, APINJ follows a continuous publication model, and articles are published as soon as they have been peer-reviewed and copyedited.As the editor-in-chief, I am happy to announce the launch of a new member of JMIR Publications’ open access family of journals, the Nursing in Asia and the Pacific Islands comprises a rapidly growing group of professionals, and the region represents the fastest growing minority group in the United States. According to the 2020 United States census , there aAs the official journal of the Asian American / Pacific Islander Nurses Association, APINJ supports researchers, educators, and practitioners in addressing these critical information deficits by providing a quality, peer-reviewed, international forum for the exchange of knowledge in relation to Asian and Pacific Islander health and nursing care. APINJ features research papers; empirical, theoretical, and clinical articles; editorials; abstracts of recent dissertations; and conference summaries that relate to Asian American and Pacific Islander health and nursing written by those in the nursing and social sciences disciplines, such as clinical and developmental psychology, sociology, anthropology, social work, public health, education, genetics, pharmacology, infectious disease, oncology, cardiovascular disease, pulmonary function and disease, dermatology, wound healing, immunology, anesthesiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, hematology, neonatology, nephrology, pathology, physiology, nutrition, pain management, sleep disturbances, dental health, and mental health.Building on the JMIR foundation, the scope of APINJ includes, but is not limited to, methods, interventions, instrumentation, and educational techniques; theoretical foundations that increase the understanding of underlying mechanisms for changes in health and illness; biopsychosocial, spiritual, and ecological impacts on practice, education, and research; and policy issues as a result of rigorous research outcomes.Journal of Medical Internet Research.APINJ offers authors a rapid and thorough peer-review, professional copyediting, and professional production of PDF, XHTML, and XML proofs. This journal adheres to the same quality standards as our flagship journal, the


Science recently described a series of articles with potential scientific misconduct (Science called out potential image manipulation in multiple articles, including one published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in 2012 (Science story relayed many of the same details found in an April 18, 2022, New York Times piece (The journal sconduct , emphasies piece .Science and the New York Times focused primarily on the very serious topic of potential scientific misconduct. However, these articles only lightly touched upon the concept of short selling stock, and I believe this matter deserves more attention for its inherent conflicts of interest. Short selling entails borrowing shares of a stock, selling shares high, followed by buying shares back at a lower price and pocketing the difference. Short sellers profit from devaluing a stock. It is legal to devalue stocks using public statements, and short sellers will often use social media as a primary venue to make defamatory statements, expressed as opinions. This process is known as “short and distort.”The articles in JCI article. The email asserted image manipulation, stating that sender was “retained by a law firm to investigate a concern of scientific misconduct related to the development of a drug intended to treat Alzheimer’s disease.” In the summer of 2021, the stock price connected to the company testing simufilam soared, drawing the interest of short sellers. This company developing simufilam is featured among the most highly shorted stocks (New Yorker, two physician-scientists in 2021 worked with an attorney to petition the FDA to halt the clinical trials of simufilam (New Yorker and described in Compliance Weekly (In August 2021, the Journal was contacted by email about the 2012 d stocks , and by imufilam . The FDAe Weekly , 6.JCI paper. Although we cannot be certain, there now appear to be new “short and distorters.” A recent round of emails was sent simultaneously to multiple journals and editors, identifying 25 articles with potential problems and providing recommendations on how the journals should respond. Importantly, these accusatory emails do not identify any financial conflicts of interest on the part of the whistleblowers. The emails insist that an investigation begin within 24 hours and request that the journals update them on investigative progress. As an editor, I am expressing concern because this represents a new means of manipulating the scientific publishing industry.Throughout 2022, the Journal has been repeatedly contacted to comment on the 2012 JCI has been at the forefront in trying to detect image manipulation in its manuscripts. For more than a decade, the JCI has required full uncut gel and blot images as part of the submission process. Beginning in 2021, the JCI was among the first to use an artificial intelligence–driven software package to analyze all images prior to accepting a paper (JCI, we will act accordingly through expressions of concern or retractions. There are ongoing institutional investigations for some of the allegations outlined in Science, and as a journal we await the outcome.The  a paper , 8. FundJCI will always take seriously any allegations of misconduct or misrepresentation, but we will take the time needed to conduct a proper and thorough investigation. Going forward, whistleblowers, just like authors, editors, and referees, will be asked to inform us of recent, ongoing, and potential conflicts of interest. Financial conflicts of interest will be considered and weighed in any follow-up investigative actions and especially in any communication to the whistleblowers. We may independently seek to verify whistleblowers’ potential conflicts. We will limit what information we share with whistleblowers, since advanced notice of news reports positions short sellers to take advantage of shifts in stock prices. There is a time sensitivity to short selling, so we feel the best approach for any journal is to be deliberate and cautious, and to exert due diligence in investigating any allegations of scientific misconduct or data/image manipulation.What is a journal to do? The JCI may elect to express its concern to the US Securities and Exchange Commission or the Department of Justice.Last, if the Journal uncovers allegations made for the purposes of stock manipulation, with evidence of misinformation, the