Life Science Alliance (LSA) and his experience in science thus far.Umut Şahin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Boğaziçi University’s Center for Life Sciences and Technologies. We asked him about his recent paper published in  Life Science Alliance (LSA) and his experience in science thus far. He explains how his team built upon their initial in vivo data by further complementing it with in vitro work, and emphasizes the relevance of their study to virology, immunology, as well as to the SUMO community. He shares the long term goals and vision of his laboratory, and explains how past and current connections shape his research interests and fuel his passion for science.Umut Şahin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Boğaziçi University’s Center for Life Sciences and Technologies. We asked him about his recent paper published in  My lab is primarily focused on investigating the roles of SUMOylation, a key post-translational modification which has attracted immense attention over the past 2 decades as a crucial mechanism for development and stress response, in major cellular processes, particularly in the context of pathology. Initially, we were interested in studying the potential changes in proteome-wide sumoylation in vivo among people suffering from chronic inflammation. Numerous diseases, including cancer, arthritis, neurodegeneration, multiple sclerosis, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and infections, are associated with chronic inflammation that can cause severe damage to the body. Altered (possibly increased) sumoylation may serve as a target process that can potentially be manipulated with therapeutic benefits.Because untreated HIV disease is notoriously associated with chronic inflammation, it was included on our list of conditions that we initially aimed to study with respect to alterations in in vivo sumoylation. While studying the blood of HIV-infected individuals, more specifically, their white blood cells, we consistently observed a proteome-wide reduction in the sumoylation activity. This disruption in sumoylation in vivo was so persuasive and compelling that we have decided to focus on HIV infection for the time being and explore this phenomenon in further detail.In retrospect, the story of this paper has evolved in a rather untraditional manner in that some unexpected yet very strong findings in an in vivo setting prompted us to conduct further in vitro research, and not vice versa. Exceptions aside, often in biomedical research, in vitro work precedes in vivo studies, meaning that we usually require sufficient in vitro evidence to justify long-term investment in animal or patient-based studies. Indeed, because of the elevated levels of inflammation and the persistent stress burden on the immune system in HIV disease, we initially expected to observe a subtle upregulation of sumoylation in vivo, or system-wide changes that would perhaps only be detected in proteomic analyses. Nevertheless, the sharp decrease we see in the abundance of global SUMO conjugates in the leukocytes was also perfectly consistent with the growing literature on how pathogens attack sumoylation to disarm host immune responses. Therefore, to explore this further, we decided to carry out elaborate ex vivo studies, and eventually showed that HIV-1 expression in cell culture was sufficient to cause a sharp and specific loss of a subunit of the SUMO E1 enzyme, wiping out cell-wide sumoylation as a consequence. Eventually, when we wrote the paper, we chose to introduce the in vitro results first, which were then supported by the data coming from the patients, because it simply made more sense in that order and allowed everything to come together as one coherent story. The pandemic has really focused many scientists’ attention on pathogens’ influences on human life and on society. Humankind has been living with viruses for millennia, constantly co-evolving. HIV infection is an ongoing pandemic and still a major public health issue. In this paper, we have unraveled a new and previously unexplored layer of complexity by which this virus targets our immune system.Both my PhD and postdoc advisors  were MD, PhDs. I believe that training with them and observing how they approached basic scientific problems from a medical perspective also provided me with a certain insight to address some of the existing gaps in biomedical knowledge and therapies. In that respect, with this particular study on HIV, I was very glad to have the opportunity to collaborate with some of the best medical doctors in Turkey.As scientists, we strive to publish in eminent journals, which ensures visibility. Accomplishing this also validates the relevance of our work straight away, even before the citations start kicking in. Part of that validation process involves robust peer-review. If you get constructive and positive feedback from the experts in your field who can also point at the weaknesses of your original submission in a balanced manner, if you get a feeling that they have really invested their time in reading your manuscript and going over your data, and that they are willing to cooperate with you and with the journal editors to further improve your paper before accepting and presenting it to the field, then not only do you feel that your work raised interest and attracted attention, but also that you are in the right place to publish.LSA regarding the two other papers that I had previously published in this journal prior to our story on HIV. I was first introduced to LSA a few years ago during one of the annual EMBO YIP meetings in Heidelberg, immediately following the launch of this journal. I had the opportunity to hear first-hand about its mission and vision from the editors at EMBO Press, and even learned a bit about the story behind its launch from Tilmann Kiessling, the head of EMBO Communications, when he visited us in Istanbul a few years ago. With the support of three prominent and reputable press houses and a stellar list of advisory editorial board members, I immediately realized that achieving publication at LSA would ensure visibility.This is exactly how I can describe my experience with LSA was indicative of high editorial and referee standards, almost comparable to my past experiences with the Journal of Cell Biology  where I have two first author papers. In the meantime, the editorial process was so smooth, rapid and transparent, and the editors were so understanding, communicative and cooperative that I did not hesitate to send our most recent story also to LSA as well. In brief, a few things factored in my decision-making process in submitting our work to LSA: prestige, visibility, high scientific standards and robust peer review, smooth and friendly editorial process, transparency, and open-accessibility. And of course, importantly, so far I have really enjoyed reading many of the publications that came out in this journal.The peer review process of my first two publications at LSA allows me to reach out to them.Especially during this pandemic, I think most of us have acknowledged the importance of promptly disseminating the scientific knowledge and progress, not only to our colleagues in our own field of study, but also to the scientists from other disciplines, as well as to the public. I have always had the chance to work at prominent institutions with reasonable access to many scientific and medical journals. But even then, I have been frustrated on so many occasions for not being able to download a specific article with a very appealing title and abstract, either due to lack of subscription or I was simply off campus and had no access to the journal. When these circumstances present, either I have to remember to chase after that article  or sometimes I simply give up and move on. Therefore, from my own experience and perspective, I feel that publishing in an open access journal impacts the visibility of our work in a positive way, and allows our findings and discoveries to reach more people, including researchers that may be working in low- or mid-income countries where their host institutions may not warrant subscriptions to many scientific journals. In addition, while academic institutions usually offer broad access to scientific journals, many hospitals and pharmaceutical companies do not. Because my work also interests medical doctors who may be working in hospitals, as well as drug discovery teams in the pharmaceutical industry, publishing in an open access journal like Publishing in a visible, trustworthy and reputable journal definitely helps, and I have learned that these do not necessarily align with the impact factor. Therefore, my first advice would be to pick a journal where your work really fits in: finding the most suitable journal for your work is an important but often underestimated task, and this will not only affect the initial editorial evaluation process, but also eventually determine who will see and read your paper.Next, make sure that the journal features the abovementioned qualities: visible, trustworthy and reputable . Finally, one should keep in mind that publishing in an open access journal will no doubt enhance visibility.Although publication is an important part of the research process, dissemination of our work also involves conferences, meetings, symposia and seminars. Another piece of advice would be to attend such events as frequently as possible and make an effort to present your work. If possible, also take part in the organization process. These events present great opportunities for networking, reaching out, making yourself and your work visible, and getting valuable feedback from your colleagues and peers from all over the world.Finally, I have recently discovered that many scientists are also very active on social media, especially on Twitter, which, I myself have also started using. This really helped me make connections with scientists from all over the world, some within my own field of research and others from many diverse fields, and allowed me to follow their scientific progress and to observe their academic (or non-academic) journeys. On social media, scientists also share their problems and frustrations with which I can easily empathize. Particularly during the pandemic, using social media for science  helped me feel less isolated and better-integrated with the rest of the world, and allowed me to stay up-to-date on the latest scientific developments and policy making.The long term goal of my research is to understand the biology of SUMO proteins, to dissect their functions in health and pathology, and to explore their potential for targeted therapies. We use multidisciplinary approaches such as cell biology, biochemistry, biophysics, high resolution imaging, proteomics, as well as transgenic animal models of disease. We also work very closely with medical doctors.LSA our discovery of Cas9 sumoylation . Is this meaningful from a host–pathogen interactions standpoint? Several viral and bacterial proteins are known to be sumoylated following infection of the host, and this may have positive or negative outcomes for the pathogen, depending on the context. I am also highly interested in exploring the potential of sumoylation for the development of next generation targeted therapies. Lately, we have focused primarily on ALS , a neurodegenerative disease with dismal prognosis, and mainly studied the functions of sumoylation in the pathogenesis of this disease. Specifically, we strive to better understand the molecular and cellular basis of neurodegeneration in ALS patients, especially in those with previously unexplored mutations. For instance, we are investigating the liquid–liquid phase separation behavior of ALS-linked proteins, as well as their tendency to escape from cellular quality control, and trying to understand how these processes may be affected by (dysregulated) sumoylation. I have good reason to believe that the latter may serve as a target process that may be manipulated pharmacologically for therapeutic purposes. To study this, we are also using novel animal models of ALS, and some preclinical studies are already underway. Hopefully, we have a big story coming up on this.On other fronts, we are also keen on studying the roles of sumoylation in metabolic regulation, as well as in cancer processes.I come from a family of judges, attorneys and prosecutors. There were no scientists, physicians or teachers in my family that would otherwise inspire me to do science. My parents encouraged me to go to law school, but I had no spark of interest or excitement for that subject. I grew up watching many of the classic sci-fi movies and TV shows of the 80s and 90s, and I have always been fascinated by their various depictions of humanity’s future, the role of science, technology and innovation in our society, humankind’s vast understanding of the universe and its command on the laws that govern it. Reading popular science and about our nature had become a habit pattern for me, and pursuing a career in science only felt like second nature. Eventually, biomedical and health sciences have become my passion, but I am also generally interested in other scientific disciplines as well, physics in particular. For example, I am really fascinated by experimental high energy physics and cosmology, and try to keep myself up-to-date on our endeavor, as humankind, to explore fundamental questions about the nature of our universe.There were indeed defining moments along my career path that led me to where I am today. An interesting one worth mentioning is when I faced a crossroads to choose a lab to pursue my PhD studies. Back in 2001, I was almost 1.5 years into my graduate studies at Brown University’s Molecular and Cellular Biology and Biochemistry Program. I was working, happily, in a protein biochemistry lab where I thought I would complete my PhD thesis. One morning, I woke up to the news that my prospective thesis advisor was not granted tenure. I remember feeling really frustrated and anxious, and having already completed three lab rotations, I was not sure which lab to transfer to start things over. Then, following discussions with our graduate program head and the dean, I filed an application (which was then promptly granted) for a special program which allowed outstanding graduate students enrolled in a PhD program in one of a dozen participating institutions to study at one of the other participating universities, which included all eight Ivy League schools, MIT, Stanford and UC Berkeley. Suddenly, I was presented with an incredible opportunity: I could pick from a list of hundreds of labs situated at these excellent host institutions and pursue my PhD career there. I was primarily interested in protein biochemistry and folding, post-translational modifications, proteolysis and degradation.I had discussions with several PIs over the course of the next few weeks, and finally ended up joining Carl Blobel’s lab at Cornell Medical School and Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York, which has been a landmark point in my career. In retrospect, this was an excellent choice and I still feel very lucky that Carl had an opening in his lab at that very moment. I greatly enjoyed my time in his lab, all the while getting an excellent training. Together, we wrote a now-classic Journal of Cell Biology paper on the ectodomain shedding of the EGFR ligands, which, after 17 years of its publication, still gets cited once every few days . Along tAside from some brief periods of frustration, in general, I feel extremely lucky to have always worked with amazing scientists, who were also intellects, great supervisors and friends at the same time. Another breakthrough moment on my career path was joining Hugues de Thé’s lab in Paris for my post-doctoral studies. Working with Hugues, and also with Valérie Lallemand-Breitenbach, ultimately shaped and defined my interest in sumoylation as a post-translational modification, from a standpoint of both basic biology and translational medicine.I have great enthusiasm for science communication, innovative dissemination of research and scientific progress. Several years back, while I was still a postdoc in Hugues de Thé’s lab, I actually applied for a scientific editor position at a competitive cancer journal. My application was shortlisted, which was followed by a rigorous selection process during which I successfully completed the assignments I was given, went through phone interviews, and finally got invited to their headquarters for a final in-person person interview. When this job and the new career path started to become a reality for me, which I would have no doubt enjoyed, it also dawned on me that I actually wanted an active career in research, so I ended up declining this final interview offer. Today, as an academician, I still try to contribute as much as I can to the process, for instance, by writing reviews for the field, in particular with a historical perspective, or by actively reviewing manuscripts.Also, one day, I would like to get my master of arts degree in Asian Studies, if time allows. I have great interest in Asian and Southeast Asian cultures, history, politics, languages, and of course, cuisine. Several years ago, I took up the challenge of learning Mandarin Chinese and it has been an intense and very interesting cultural and philosophical journey for me. I am interested in the philosophy of language as a discipline, and fascinated by the interplay between the mind, thought, language and communication.


I believe that business is nothing more than a group of people trying to make a difference.”“—Sir Richard BransonAntimicrobial Stewardship and Healthcare Epidemiology (ASHE) journal is a momentous step for the scientific mission of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All of us on the editorial team are both honored and deeply excited about the future of ASHE. Before looking forward, it is important for us to pause and reflect on the multiple events of the last year and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to gain a better perspective on and clear commitment to what lies ahead.The launch of the open-access The COVID-19 pandemic affected us in multiple ways. As healthcare epidemiologists and healthcare providers across varied components of the healthcare delivery spectrum, we faced tremendous challenges in infection prevention, patient quality and safety antimicrobial stewardship, disinfection, the use of personal protective equipment, diagnostic testing and the clinical management of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. All of this was coupled with rapid scientific discovery and dissemination in the medical literature.The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed the many weaknesses in the fabric of society, including significant healthcare disparities by race and inequalities in access and outcomes for individuals with COVID-19. The tragic death of George Floyd reignited an intense awareness of racism, diversity, justice, equity, and intersectionality. The year 2020 also witnessed an explosion of misinformation  across multiple spheres including medicine and politics. More than ever, the medical infodemic underscored the important role of epidemiologists as both content experts and scientists to drive an evidence-based public health response in critical times.These unique times shaped the vision of ASHE. The journal is committed to the rapid dissemination of high-quality, timely, evolving science in antimicrobial stewardship and healthcare epidemiology in an open-access model, to serve both developed and low- and middle-income countries. To do so, we are committed to diversity in professional backgrounds, nationalities, and gender across the editorial team, such that journal leadership reflects not only the membership of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America but also the antimicrobial stewardship and healthcare epidemiology community at large. Next, we will seek innovative original science, reviews, and commentaries that represent a diversity of perspectives, issues, evolving challenges, and controversies in the varied field of healthcare epidemiology and antimicrobial stewardship, with the ultimate goal of maximal content accessibility to a worldwide readership. Additionally, SHEA members will benefit from a highly discounted rate and the journal will waive publishing costs for invited reviews.Authors submitting to ASHE will find that the journal provides constructive peer review, competitive turnaround times, immediate online publication, and social media promotion. As a fully gold open-access journal, ASHE readers will benefit from free and easy access to all journal content, bringing the widest possible impact, reach, and discoverability for our authors and readers. The journal is engaged in efforts to ensure that article processing charges (APCs) are not a barrier to publication. Our publisher, Cambridge University Press, has recently signed a number of read-and-publish agreements with hundreds of institutions worldwide, which will cover APCs for corresponding authors from those institutions. APCs for authors from low- or middle-income countries will be waived or discounted through initiatives like Research4LifeAs we move forward and view the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview mirror, we must not forget the valuable lessons learned from scientific responsiveness and the publication of high-quality science, under a vigorous peer review, in an open-access manner. With a diversity of both content and contributors, ASHE will aim for a global audience for advancing patient safety, antimicrobial stewardship, and healthcare epidemiology, with the aspiration of making a difference.


Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) can be effectively managed using a pessary. A scoping review found that pessary self-management appears to benefit women with no increased risk. Despite this, many are unwilling to self-manage their pessary. At present, there is a lack of understanding about what affects willingness to self-manage a pessary. However, there may be relevant, transferable findings from other literature about barriers to the self-management of other chronic conditions. Therefore, this systematic review aims to identify, appraise and synthesise the findings of published qualitative research exploring the barriers and facilitators to self-management of chronic conditions reported by women.The systematic review will be conducted and reported in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and a guide for the systematic review of qualitative data. A search of MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase and PsycInfo will be undertaken to identify relevant articles that meet the eligibility criteria using the search terms ‘Women’, ‘Woman’ ‘Female,’ ‘Chronic’, ‘Long-term’, ‘Disease’, ‘Illness’, ‘Condition’ ‘Health,’ ‘Self-management,’ ‘Qualitative,’ ‘Barrier’ and ‘Facilitator’. A hand search of the reference list of non-original research identified during the search but excluded will be conducted for additional publications, which meet the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Studies published before 2005 and those not available in English will be excluded. Data relevant to the topic will be extracted and critical appraisal of all included publications undertaken.No ethical or Health Research Authority approval is required to undertake the systematic review. The systematic review findings will be disseminated by publication. The findings will also inform subsequent exploratory work regarding pessary self-management.CRD42022327643. The review will be conducted using rigorous and reproducible methods to systematically identify, appraise and synthesise relevant qualitative evidence.Critical appraisal of the evidence will be undertaken to determine the weighting of included research findings, as well as identifying the methodological strengths and limitations of the current evidence base.The identification and synthesis of data will be limited to published articles found on the MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase and PsycInfo databases and a hand search of reference lists. The authors will not seek original data.The criteria that included studies must be published in English means there is potential for cultural bias in the findings.et al, 2022, in press). However, the review also found that many women do not feel able, or lack willingness to self-manage their pessary, concluding that further research was required to explore barriers to self-management .Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is the downward displacement of one or more of the pelvic organs including the uterus, vaginal compartments, bowel or bladder.et al, 2022, in press). However, it is also possible there are barriers to pessary self-management that apply to the concept of self-management of any chronic condition. The term self-management was first used by Creer during the 1960s to describe increased patient participation and engagement with care planning and treatment.9There is currently a lack of evidence about barriers to pessary self-management; however, there may be relevant, transferable findings from other literature about barriers to the self-management of other chronic conditions. POP is a condition that solely affects women. Therefore, further understanding of the barriers to self-management specifically in women is indicated to ensure findings are relevant and generalisable to the female population. It is acknowledged that the intimate nature of pessary self-insertion and removal may contribute to condition-specific barriers as identified in the scoping review  and PROSPERO (CRD42022327643) to ensure transparency and prevent contemporaneous duplication of the review.14 15In accordance with PRISMA recommendations, this systematic review has been registered with The Open Science Framework  Priority Setting Partnership for pessary and prolapse.No ethical or Health Research Authority approval is required to undertake the systematic review. The systematic review findings will be disseminated by publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The findings will also inform subsequent exploratory work regarding pessary self-management.


Revista Brasileira de Medicina do Trabalho, RBMT). I believe that it is a timely reflection as we approach the publication of volume 20, in other words, RBMT has been published for approximately 20 years.With this question, I start a reflection on our Brazilian Journal of Occupational Medicine (Returning to the initial question, the answer is obviously yes. However, I would like to add some arguments to this discussion.We are well aware of the importance of disseminating scientific research in the society we live, fully permeated by science and technology. For these fields to develop, we need to disclose information. Therefore, we understand that scientific knowledge is part of society’s demands.Nowadays, with the advent of the Internet and social media, access to information is becoming increasingly easier, but we need to be concerned with the reliability and quality of the information disclosed.Some people believe that scientific research is disseminated only among scientists and academia. However, it is currently argued that knowledge must necessarily circulate through society, and, in this respect, it is essential that the traffic of information through the Internet and social media come from reliable sources.Therefore, I understand that RBMT is fulfilling its role of disseminating occupational medicine knowledge in a consistent and easily accessible manner, with reliable and timely information regarding issues that arise in the daily practice of occupational physicians, as they are a result of observation of frontline health workers and professionals linked to academia.And how did we start our journey?In mid-2003, on the initiative of Professor René Mendes, the then president of the National Association of Occupational Medicine, RBMT was created. The journal had 80 pages containing an editorial, 6 original articles, 1 opinion article, and 1 case report. Among the authors, some have already left us, and others are active exponents of occupational medicine in Brazil.The journal evolved until 2005, when it was faced with editorial continuity problems that persisted until 2010. Fortunately, the journal managed to keep its publication, although with a few pages.In 2010, the journal’s publication frequency was resumed, with 2 annual issues and volumes of around 60 pages each.In 2016, the frequency increased to 3 issues per year and, in 2017, we started the current format of 4 issues per year, which has been maintained since then, with an average of 132 pages per volume.Therefore, we can state that our RBMT is consolidated and progressing to reach new horizons, compatible with the importance of our specialty, which, by the way, is the sixth specialty in number of specialists in Brazil.In this trajectory toward adulthood, RBMT has published 426 articles as well as other types of publications, such as letters, case reports, opinion articles, systematic reviews, guidelines, book reviews, and brief communications, accounting for more than 4064 pages and 12,090 references.The health professionals who most frequently publish their works in our RBMT, taking into account the principal investigator, are as follows: physicians, with 263 publications nurses, with 67 publications physical therapists, with 35 publications physical educators, with 23 publications psychologists, with 10 publications others, such as administrators, social workers, biologists, biochemists, dentists, social communicators, engineers, and physicists, with less than 4 publications each.By distributing the publications across the specialty areas for the practice of occupational medicine, the following dispersion is obtained:Thus, we can observe that comprehensive care to workers’ health and policies, health organization and management, safety, and environment are the most discussed topics in the published articles, demands that are undoubtedly important for the work of occupational physicians.We have also had contributions from international institutions, such as from Italy, Mexico, Colombia, and Portugal, with almost 30 publications in our journal, which indicates a tendency toward internationalization.It should also be noted the hard work of all RBMT editors and reviewers, who make the journal happen and assist in the writing of manuscripts submitted for publication.Finally, I firmly believe that the journal will continue to drive occupational medicine knowledge and I call on all professionals interested in professional improvement to write and publish their experience, sharing knowledge and propelling our specialty to new heights, aiming at joint growth and focusing on promotion of workers’ health, the reason for our existence.And let another 20 years come!


The Chaeli Campaign is a Cape Town based non-profit organisation offering programmes largely for children and youth with disabilities in diverse under-resourced communities in South Africa. Their therapy team established a Health Professions Council of South Africa accredited interdisciplinary journal club in January 2012, with the aim to improve the team’s service to the community.Our first objective was to make our practice more evidence-based through reading systematically and critically in our field. Our second objective was to write up and share some of our practices to contribute to the generation of practice-based evidence.First-person action research was applied. The core group of participants over time comprised two occupational therapists, one physiotherapist, two speech therapists, two teachers and four community development workers. Nine iterative cycles of planning, action, review and revised planning have been implemented on an annual basis in this non-formal, long-term action research project.For over nine and a half years we have pre-read, discussed and completed evaluation questionnaires on 54 peer-reviewed journal articles, conducted 12 conference presentations and published three articles in accredited journals. Participants reported a broadened understanding of issues around disability, more reflective, contextually and culturally appropriate practice and improved interdisciplinary teamwork.The Chaeli Campaign journal club has built the capacity of therapists, teachers and community development workers to find, read, evaluate and use research evidence to improve their practice. It has also given participants the opportunity to ethically research, present and write up their grass roots interventions, thus contributing to locally applicable practise-based evidence. It is hoped that the sharing of our experience will assist and encourage other teams to start interdisciplinary journal clubs as a step towards facilitating two-way knowledge translation from evidence to practice and from practice to evidence. Evidence-based practice is a fundamental underpinning of professional ethics in the rehabilitation field Buchanan . TherapiThe Chaeli Campaign is a Cape Town based, non-profit organisation (NPO) striving to optimise the inclusion and participation of children and youth with disabilities in context and age-appropriate activities. The therapy team, which in 2022 includes four community development workers (CDWs), an occupational therapist, a physiotherapist, a speech therapist and two teachers work collaboratively and meet formally on a quarterly basis. We have worked in a variety of under-resourced communities, largely in the Western Cape province of South Africa with a focus on the interdisciplinary rehabilitation of children with severe disabilities, carer training, situation-specific inclusive education support where we work alongside children, their families, schools and communities and preventative early childhood development (ECD) stimulation programmes with ECD teachers, classes of children and their parents.Across the health and rehabilitation sciences, the gap between clinical practice and theoretical developments has been a concern for some time, as evidenced by both earlier and more recent sources  and the learning value of the discussions appear to motivate regular attendance with very few exceptions, only in cases of emergency. It is encouraged, but optional, whether staff facilitates sessions or involves themselves in article writing and presentations.The initial cycle in 2012 was facilitated by the speech therapist-academic and therapy team coordinator and included registering as an HPCSA interdisciplinary journal club. Since 2013 therapists have taken turns to facilitate discussion meetings and compile the evaluation questionnaire, which consists of 10 questions . To upskill themselves the authors participated in in-house tutorials and/or mentoring sessions on sourcing and evaluating articles, basic research methods, principles of ethics and questionnaire design . The Chaeli Campaign’s CDWs joined the journal club in 2015. To accommodate varying levels of academic literacy amongst our team, the facilitating therapist provides a summary of the main points at the start of sessions and those not needing CPD points can choose to complete the evaluation questionnaires in pairs to reduce any unnecessary stress. Community development workers have played an active role in preparing for and co-facilitating journal club meetings with therapists since 2018.Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic the authors met face-to-face (indoors) six times per year. More recently we have continued to meet six times per year, either remotely through Zoom and WhatsApp or in-person outdoors with masks on and physical distancing, depending on the fluctuating lockdown restrictions.All team members are supported to choose relevant articles. At the end-of-year meeting the authors explore topics and articles they would like to discuss at future meetings. The authors choose six articles for the following year, which meet the HPCSA accreditation criteria (e.g. not older than 5 years) and which are preferably South African or related to our grassroots work in a relevant way. Thus, regular topics include inclusive education, ethical issues, community participation of children with disabilities, the impact of therapy programmes, the lived experience of families with children with various disabilities , cultural issues, South African health systems, disability studies, sexuality, the impact of poverty and youth development. At the end of each journal club session, the three open-ended questions in the evaluation questionnaire compiled by the presenting therapist encourage application of learning into their current work to ensure that they have contextualised the articles and can leave with the new knowledge translated into practical skills and competencies to use in their work.It was a huge learning curve for the therapists and teacher involved in writing and getting articles recording some of our collaborative learnings from grassroots work in various under-resourced communities published, as only one member of the team had academic work experience at the beginning. The authors began with areas of work familiar to the whole team and often they first shared their work at a conference as a poster or oral presentation. Then, the article writing task was divided into individual small steps, possible target journals were explored and ethical requirements were carefully considered before writing, submitting and refining the articles based on reviewer comments. The authors persisted with this process as they had struggled to find simple, practical peer-reviewed articles in open access journals, which is essential considering that the vast majority of people who work alongside persons with disabilities do not have high academic and research literacy levels.Our most recent reflective review took place in the form of a request by the therapy team coordinator in April 2020 to the current therapy team comprising three therapists, two teachers and four CDWs to send written replies to three questions, that is:What are some of your highs and lows of taking part in the journal club?How has this journal club influenced your work?Has the experience of being part of the journal club led to anything further for you?Three therapists , one teacher (Teacher 1) and two CDWs (CDW 1 and 2) chose to respond and excerpts from their verbatim quotes are included in the findings and discussion section following a process of thematic analysis by the interdisciplinary team of authors.This was primarily a long-term learning and collaborative capacity development activity and expectations of rigorous research could not be applied. However, recommendations for future research can be made.For over nine and a half years, participants have pre-read, discussed and completed evaluation questionnaires on 54 peer-reviewed journal articles related to our work.The authors have made 12 conference presentations and published 3 articles in accredited journals. ‘A journey towards inclusive education: A case study from a “township” in South Africa’ ‘When I started at the Chaeli Campaign, journal club was the most scary thing for me. The name I think is quite intimidating and the thought of drawing up the questions was very scary for me. Then the first journal club that I had to facilitate was quite daunting.’ However, encouragingly, participants report a broadened understanding of issues around disability:‘Somewhere somehow the topic that we discuss does match with some of the challenges that I come across with my clients. They help me to respond better to the challenges and they also expand my knowledge and understanding on disability matters.’ speech therapist-academic].’ ‘My work has been influenced as we have covered numerous relevant topics, which have expanded my skill set and I feel confident to look for and read journal articles that relate to a topic of interest after much graded guidance over many years from  even if at first it seems very academic and not really to do with ECD. It’s when we start discussing it that you see how it can be put into practice.’ ‘It always surprises me how snippets from every article can be related to work at [The Chaeli Campaign journal club has built the capacity of therapists, teachers and CDWs to find, read, evaluate and use research evidence to improve their practice and to ethically research, present and write up grass roots interventions. Participants report a broadened understanding of issues around disability, more reflective, contextually and culturally appropriate practice and improved interdisciplinary teamwork.It is hoped that the sharing of our experience will assist and encourage other teams, whether at NPOs, community healthcare centres or rehabilitation centres in under-resourced communities, to start interdisciplinary journal clubs as a step towards facilitating two-way knowledge translation from evidence to practice and from practice to evidence with the ultimate aim being to improve the services offered to communities. Furthermore, more formal and rigorous research into action learning methodology and the impact of such a journal club and writing project is recommended.


Problems and difficulties faced by Editors of Biomedical Journals in Pakistan continue to increase with every passing day. Devaluation of the Pakistani currency has resulted in tremendous increase in cost of production. Poor quality of manuscripts received for publication from within the country, lack of efficient reviewers, pressure by authors who are known as the most dangerous pressure group which the editors have to face as they wish to get their papers published soon after submission are some others difficulties which are mounting and it has become almost impossible for the editors to please everyone.We keep on publishing guidelines for the authors, follow an author friendly policy and sometime ago highlighted and documented the reasons for not accepting the papers for further processing and how to get published in a standard peer review medical journal.In order to help the authors and accelerate the peer review process, we now ask the authors to suggest two to three potential reviewers for their study. However, we make it clear that we might use any one of them along with some reviewers from our reviewer’s database and then look at their comments, edit them and then communicate it to the authors to revise their manuscripts. The suggested reviewers are also communicated guidelines on how to review a manuscript. It is also made absolutely clear that they should suggest only those as reviewers who are keen, interested, have worked in those particular areas and have the desired expertize to review the manuscript. Furthermore, their comments will be reviewed by the Editorial Team which may or may not accept their recommendations as they will be added to the comments received from other reviewers. The authors are conveyed all the comments in a combined e mail and they are asked to make the necessary changes in the file which is sent to them with instructions to make changes and highlight them. They are further instructed to ensure that the revised manuscript is accompanied with a covering note giving details of how they have responded to the reviewer’s comments and suggestions. Those manuscripts which require extensive revision are again sent to the same reviewers for their further input. However, in some cases what happens is that the authors even do not bother to read the e mail carefully, do not follow the instructions, send a new file with the changes, additions. It is not possible to format the whole manuscript once again as it takes a couple of hours and all this results in further delay in the processing of the manuscripts.Most often reviewers have to be reminded to expedite the review. The authors must understand that the Editorial Team can edit and correct their manuscripts but they should not be expected to rewrite the manuscripts. If the English language is extremely poor and presentation is also disappointing, such papers certainly cannot be accepted. In order to avoid any inconvenience, we even ask the authors to send us the structured abstract of their paper by e mail and get a feedback within few days whether we can process their paper or not. They won’t have to lose the processing fee which is non-refundable once the paper has been submitted on the journal website with all the documents. The authors are supposed to provide structured abstract with all the authors, their affiliation and individual contribution in the study but most often they do not provide all this information. Provision of this detailed information along with structured abstract is essential for taking a decision as we are very careful about the menace of gift authorship that is why we most often do not allow more than four authors in single center studies. If the authors are told that the topic of their study is interesting, it does not mean it will also be accepted for publication because it all depends on the quality of presentation as well.Further more it is not uncommon to receive requests for fast track processing of the manuscripts by the authors particularly those who are enrolled as PhD students in various universities despite the fact that it has been made clear on our website that currently facility of fast track processing is not available. Authors are asked to plan for at least six to eight months from the date of submission and those who are in a hurry, should submit their manuscripts to some other journal. The request is for immediate publication as they have got two to three months left. They already knew from the very first day that they need a publication based on their Thesis but they do not take this seriously, waste precious time, at times it is the lack of guidance by their unwilling supervisors as well. But editors cannot compensate for all the time lost. These PhD scholars need to plan it and ensure completion of their research project in time and submit in time for publication. Sometimes they insist that just give us the acceptance letter and the paper may be published when it is feasible but little do they realize that an acceptance letter can only be issued when the whole review process is completed and it takes couple of months. Every editor is also keen to quickly publish good quality studies which can get more citations, hence the researchers need to put emphasis on quality of their studies and innovation rather than undertaking routine work.In order to know our strength and weaknesses, we always do our annual publication audit to find out the countries, regions from where we attract authors, the number of manuscripts being received for publication.A critical analysis further revealed that largest number of manuscripts received from overseas four hundred and two were from China followed by two hundred sixty-five from Turkey, one hundred three from Saudi Arabia. Original articles were the largest number of papers, three hundred forty-three published during the Year 2021 followed by case reports nine, correspondence eight, Guest Editorials seven while only four review articles were accommodated during the period under review. During the year 2021 we also published a special issue to show case the research being conducted at Wuhan Institute of Technology in China.7In order to improve the quality of research and manuscripts from Pakistan, it is essential that every medical institution in Pakistan keeps on organizing regular workshops on scientific writing. Keeping in view the number of undergraduate medical students and postgraduates in affiliated teaching hospitals who all need to publish, the Medical Education Department in every medical institution should organize at least two workshops every month, one for undergraduate and one for postgraduates. If they do not have trained professionals within the faculty, they can ask for help and assistance from Pakistan Association of Medical Editors (PAME), Editors of various biomedical journals which are available in almost every big city. They can be given some honorary affiliation if it works. Dept. of Medical Education can also help the authors if the human resource is available to review, help improve the manuscripts before they are submitted to medical journals for publication which will also help to minimize trauma to these manuscripts. However, it also depends on the interest of the head of the institution. If they are interested, they can work out some plans, otherwise the problems of the researchers, budding authors won’t be solved and the editor’s worries will also multiply.


There are growing bodies of evidence demonstrating the benefits of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) on academic and organizational excellence. In turn, some editors have stated their desire to improve the EDI of their journals and of the wider scientific community. The Royal Society of Chemistry established a minimum set of requirements aimed at improving EDI in scholarly publishing. Additionally, several resources were reported to have the potential to improve EDI, but their effectiveness and feasibility are yet to be determined. In this commentary we suggest six approaches, based on the Royal Society of Chemistry set of requirements, that journals could implement to improve EDI. They are: (1) adopt a journal EDI statement with clear, actionable steps to achieve it; (2) promote the use of inclusive and bias-free language; (3) appoint a journal’s EDI director or lead; (4) establish a EDI mentoring approach; (5) monitor adherence to EDI principles; and (6) publish reports on EDI actions and achievements. We also provide examples of journals that have implemented some of these strategies, and discuss the roles of peer reviewers, authors, researchers, academic institutes, and funders in improving EDI. Editors, reviewers, researchers, funders, and academic institutions collectively act as gatekeepers of our disciplines. Their unique positions enable ethical publication practices and the setting of rigorous research standards. Frequently, these stakeholders are tasked with making critical judgements that can help progress our fields. In some cases, these judgements may be unintentionally biased and possibly fueled by the spread of misinformation.The academic publication process is built on objectivity , gender Given the ‘publish or perish’ nature of academia, the role of Journals and editors in propagating the cycle of injustice in this space is amplified . There iRealizing that biases exist in scholarly publishing, The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) established a joint commitment to action on EDI in scholarly publishing. In collaboration with signed partners, they formulated the following six minimum standards for inclusion and diversity in academic publishing: (1) integrate inclusion and diversity in the publishing activities and strategic planning; (2) work on understanding the demographic diversity of individuals at all levels of their publishing process; (3) acknowledge and address the barriers experienced by those who are under-represented among them; (4) define and clearly communicate diversity and inclusion responsibilities at all levels of the publishing process; (5) revise the appointment process for editors and editorial boards as needed, to widen the scope of the captured talent; (6) publicly report diversity and inclusion progress at least once a year . To dateIt may be argued that editors should not be obliged to ensure that their reviewer pool is geographically distributed, and that their only concern should be recruiting reviewers who are experts of the manuscript content under consideration. However, the lack of diversity in the peer reviewer can make finding reviewers harder . In addiAlthough commitments are in place to improve EDI in journals and publishing –37, the Adopt a journal diversity statement with clear, actionable steps to achieve itIncreasing diversity and inclusion in scientific publishing enhances excellence and innovation. Adopting a journal diversity statement, with clear, actionable steps to achieve it, is a practical first step for defining the problem and establishing accountability . ExpliciPromote the use of inclusive and bias-free languageth edition of the America Psychological Association is the recommendation to use the singular “they” to refer to individuals when the identified pronouns are unknown or hypothetical person is irrelevant within the context [Avoiding the perpetuation of prejudicial beliefs or demeaning attitudes in publishing activities may improve the recruitment of populations experiencing disadvantages. In turn, the journal should promote the use of inclusive and bias-free language in all correspondence and the journal website content . With ch context . The Uni context , 52, 53.Appoint a journal’s equity, diversity and inclusion director or leadWhen leaders use the power associated with their positions to advocate for EDI this may help support others to eradicate prejudice and discrimination. Editors in chief should prefer to include scholars with underrepresented backgrounds and EDI expertise to lead in EDI advocacy roles. They could, albeit less preferable, nominate one of their associate editors who has an underrepresented background or recruit an individual with expertise on EDI who does not have an underrepresented background. It would be wise to create a consultation committee for the EDI lead composed of underrepresented academics, EDI leaders, and members of the public with unique, lived experiences. The perspectives of underrepresented individuals could be crucial for the team’s success as it would help produce more culturally competent and practical solutions. The responsibilities of the lead could include reviewing journal processes while working with the Editors in chief, raising awareness of unconscious bias among the editorial teams and implementing initiatives that could improve EDI. The lead should also be responsible for developing strategies that would diversify the editorial teams, peer reviewers and authorship as well as monitor the journal’s progress in achieving EDI. The individual or team leading this appointment should review the journal’s recruitment sources and how the journal linguistically composes invitations to join the editorial teams. Of note, experience in the field of EDI and understanding of EDI principles alone are insufficient to achieve these goals. Leaders aiming to take on this role should be creative in developing strategies that align with the journal’s aims and resources.Establish a mentoring approachThere is plenty of evidence showing that members of certain populations are underrepresented in editorial roles. This impedes their ability to receive adequate experience to take on leadership positions. The process of finding editorial board members in all disciplines is challenging as is therefore recruiting editors with diverse backgrounds, gender identities, ethnicities and geographical locations would likely prove to be more challenging. However, a diverse and representative team may be more likely to display increased cultural competency based on their more diverse set of lived experiences. Efforts to recruit a representative team should be in place, and deficiencies in diversity should be explicitly acknowledged as a work in progress. Furthermore, all editorial positions should be time limited as any permanent position of power is prone to propagating disparities.Journals can post open calls for reviewer positions rather than solely depending on personal networks to improve the diversity of their reviewer pool. These advertisements should be checked for inclusivity of their wording as well as the locations of their posting. It should be noted that the use of algorithms or artificial intelligence (AI) to identify reviewers, reinforces negative cycle of bias against researchers in low-middle income countries and marginalized populations . TherefoWhen candidates for journal positions lack experience, establishing a mentoring approach may be a pragmatic approach to preparing them for the role in the future. Senior members of the editorial teams could team up with more junior members and tailor the mentoring according to their needs. Since mentors are highly likely to come from non-underrepresented groups, mentors should receive unconscious bias training or other EDI training as necessary  before engaging in mentorship activities. Given that most editorial positions are voluntary, mentoring activities need to be encouraged and acknowledged to support their work. Mentors could be rewarded by compensating them for their time or establishing internal awards for mentor excellence that may help in promotions and tenures. The uptake of these strategies by several journals may help establish a community of mentors that could be drawn on for mentorship activities. Undergoing training in research integrity may help prepare them for their roles by engaging with their mentees meaningfully and creating a supportive environment. VIRT2UE Train the trainee program is intended for individuals interested in becoming trainers in research integrity. The program focuses on developing behaviours of high moral standards related to the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and applying them to specific cases and dilemmas.Monitor adherence to equity, diversity and inclusion principlesTo identify gaps in diversity, meaningful and accurate data collection on the composition of editors, peer reviewers and authors is required. Journal editors need to systematically collect demographic data to accurately assess journal progress and tailor their goals accordingly. A standard list of questions should be presented to the research community where they can voluntarily provide self-identification data such as career stage, gender, race & ethnicity, and geographical location of the journal community . As a fiPublish reports on equity, diversity and inclusionTo hold journals accountable for their progress, journals and publishers should make their data on diversity available to the public. Therefore, journals should ensure that they acquire informed consent from participants when collecting their self-identifiable. Their data should be treated with the utmost sensitivity and stored with great care. Although we are not aware of the most appropriate approach to store data, there are ten established rules for storing digital data that journals may apply to safeguard sensitive information . JournalGiven that the impact of journal policies on compliance to mandates has been demonstrated in several areas, such as clinical trial registration and reporting guidelines –47, editReviewers and journal editors must consider that the author’s first language might not be English. Thus, they must be understanding and try to base their decision on the quality of research rather than the language. If significant language corrections are needed, we suggest directing them to a language service such as SAGE Author Services or Language Editor Services by ElSEVIER and subsequently invite them to resubmit once their manuscript is reviewed. Adjustment may be needed for authors with disabilities or neurodiverse conditions, and peer reviewers should support them accordingly. They may offer them additional feedback, extra time for revisions or arrange a call to discuss feedback.New England Journal of Medicine which requires authors to provide the representativeness of the study group in a table as a Supplementary Appendix [The impact of marginalization on the health of marginalized groups is well established . HoweverAppendix . They alReporting guidelines may improve the reporting of research and should be used by researchers –67. AlthStudents from under-represented groups face several barriers to success when engaging with academia’s traditional measures and systems of evaluation , 72, 73.Several approaches have succeeded in improving diversity among trainees and early-career researchers , 76. HowFurthermore, academic course coordinators should consider teaching the curriculum from an EDI perspective by diversifying the reading material of courses as well as the research used to compose the learning material . EmphasiSeveral funding agencies, such as NIH  and CIHRJournal editors cannot change the culture of academic societies alone since they are constrained by a broader system. Therefore, we advocate for consolidated action for improving EDI by using a systems approach that involves journal publishers, researchers, academic institutions, and funders. We acknowledge the lack of studies that show the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving EDI. However, we believe that journals adhering to the minimum standards set by RSC and following the guidance suggested in this paper may help journals obtain data that can help monitor their EDI progress. In writing this commentary, we reviewed it for inclusivity and bias-free language. We urge journal editors to develop evaluation plans to measure the effects of EDI interventions in improving the editorial culture using innovative methodological approaches.


Drosophila melanogaster as a model for genotoxic chemical mutational studies with a new program, SnpSift.” The five most influential authors who published in the journal in the past 10 years based on Scopus citations of a particular paper are Dr. Ruden’s laboratory, with 353 Scopus citations for the SnpSift paper mentioned above; Drs. Brock Christensen and Carmen J. Marsit, with 86 Scopus citations for their review, “Epigenomics in environmental health”; Dr. Michael Aschner and colleagues, with 61 Scopus citations for their paper “Genetic factors and manganese-induced neurotoxicity”; and Dr. Sandra C. dos Santos and colleagues, with 59 Scopus citations for their paper, “Yeast toxicogenomics: genome-wide responses to chemical stresses with impact in environmental health, pharmacology, and biotechnology.” While the top 5 papers were published in the early years of the journal, we will also discuss a more recent article published in 2018 on a comparison of RNA-seq and microarray methods by Dr. Michael Liguori’s laboratory, “Comparison of RNA-Seq and Microarray Gene Expression Platforms for the Toxicogenomic Evaluation of Liver From Short-Term Rat Toxicity Studies”, that far exceeds the number of downloads and views of all the other articles published in the first 10 years of the journal and will likely be a top cited paper in the second decade highlights of this journal. Finally, we discuss where the Toxicogenomics specialty section will go to advance the field of toxicogenomics, and more generally, toxicology, in the future.The Frontiers Media family has over 200 journals, which are each headed by usually one Field Chief Editor, and several specialty sections, which are each headed by one or more Specialty Chief Editors. The year 2021 was the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Frontiers in Genetics journal and the Frontiers in Toxicogenomics specialty section of this journal. In 2021, we also announce one of the newest of the Frontiers journals–Frontiers in Toxicology which is part of the Frontiers Media family of journals but independent of Frontiers in Genetics. The Specialty Chief Editor of Toxicogenomics, and one of 26 Specialty Chief Editors of Frontiers in Genetics, is Dr. Ruden. As of 2021, Toxicogenomics has published over 138 articles and has over 370 Editors including 90 Associate Editors and 280 Review Editors. The Frontiers in Genetics impact factor was initially approximately 2.5 when it was first listed in PubMed in 2015 and has risen steadily to its current value of 4.8, which is typical for the majority of the over 200 Frontiers journals that have established impact factors. In this overview of the first decade of Toxicogenomics section, we discuss the top 5 articles with the highest Scopus citations, which were all written in the first few years of the journal. The article with the highest number of citations, with 353 Scopus over 600 Google Scholar citations, and the highest average number of citations (67) that steadily increased from 10 citations in 2013 to 119 citations in 2021, was written in 2012 by Dr. Ruden’s laboratory and titled, “Using  Drosophila melanogaster  and chemical identifiers  and cell lines. We also acknowledge that Frontiers Media Editors need to take an active role by implementing publication policies that ensure data FAIRness. The FAIR  principles emphasizes the capacity of computational systems to find, access, and reuse data with minimal human intervention because of the increase in volume, complexity, and speed of data creation. FAIRness is especially important in the fields of genomics and toxicology because of the logarithmic increases in data generation.In summary, Toxicogenomics, while one of the smallest specialty section in Frontiers in Genetics, has grown tremendously over the past 10 years to one the top Toxicology journals. I am certain that the new specialty journal Frontiers in Toxicology will also soon emerge as another top toxicology journal for a more general audience. Toxicogenomics has paved a path for its success.


Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease (CJKHD) made an explicit commitment to treat authors as we would wish to be treated ourselves. This broader group of authors reaffirms this principle, for which we suggest the terminology “supportive review.”Peer review aims to select articles for publication and to improve articles before publication. We believe that this process can be infused by kindness without losing rigor. In 2014, the founding editorial team of the  Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease (CJKHD) was launched in 2014, the editors outlined 9 points where we hoped the journal could make a unique contribution. These 9 points were later expanded to eleven, and then to seventeen. A fundamental principle from the beginning was the concept of supportive review:Our explicit and unique policy is to address our authors as our colleagues with the aim to improve submitted works, regardless of our decision to publish. We will be no less scientifically and constructively critical, but we will write our reviews as we would wish to be written to ourselves.When the  In open-access publishing, CJKHD editors and others have attempted to avoid publication bias by explicitly publishing work that is internally valid, with less consideration given to its perceived importance, impact, or the direction of the findings. The Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease (CJKHD) attempts to minimize racism46 and gender bias610 through explicit commitments to equity, diversity, and inclusion in all our activities, not least being the maintenance of an editorial team and editorial board that includes a high proportion of women and men from various ethnicities. As it happens, the 2 editors-in-chief (founding and current) are both women, though both are white. We minimize error detection problems by choosing trained, detail-oriented reviewers, often early and mid-career, and by admitting research trainees enrolled in the interdisciplinary Kidney Research Scientist Core Education and National Training (KRESCENT) program to the editorial board.11Seven years later, this principle continues to be a core value. Although known to be beset with problems, peer review has been called the “least worst” system available to assess articles for publication. a phenomenon which has also been anecdotally observed for submissions in which most authors were based in China. In a poll of editors of Nature Research journals, 23% of respondents had encountered examples of inappropriate language in the peer-review process; among authors, 5% said that their experience with peer review were broadly negative and 47% that they were neither negative or positive. In an opinion piece giving advice to young scientists, Kathleen Roe wrote about her first experience of peer review: “In language that was unfamiliar to me at the time, the editor spoke of “suitability” and “journal standards,” and then referred me to 4 pages of single-spaced, sharply worded, and low-context critique by 2 peer reviewers.” From the perspective of authors, who must work with whatever they receive from journals, her cognitive-behavioral approach to developing resilience is likely quite helpful: “They may be abrupt, harsh, even unkind in their word choices. That’s on them—it’s just a peer review.” However, from the perspective of editors for CJKHD, we felt compelled to do better and to avoid abusive processes.Peer review can lack constructive positive feedback and be downright unkind. Little has been written on this. The diverse group of editors at CJKHD spanning early- to senior-career status identified this problem from our own anecdotal experiences with peer review. Publications on the experience of peer review are limited. Editors in Africa identified negative interpretations of reviews from international journals as a factor leading to African scientists publishing in predatory journals,16 and the Committee on Publication Ethics explicitly speaks of fairness, requiring reviewers to “refrain from making unfair negative comments or including unjustified criticisms of any competitors’ work that is mentioned in the manuscript.” Other suggestions to make reading and responding to review easier for authors include not attempting to rewrite the manuscript according to the reviewer’s own style or preferences and writing “constructively.”17 The use of quality checklists19 as fair external standards would be expected to improve the transparency and objectivity of the review. Open review, in which reviews are signed by the reviewer, would tend to improve transparency and accountability but has not been shown to improve the quality of reviews, and we have therefore chosen not to implement this. Reviewers suggested by the author might be more likely to write constructively; however, a system in which authors suggest reviewers is open to fraud and has been an underlying factor in retractions.22 In our view, none of these ideas goes as far as we wish to go in explicitly requiring kindness and respect.Concrete examples of “helpful” and “unhelpful” feedback are widely available and endorsed by journals, and in our training sessions, we further operationalize this by suggesting reviewer and editors write “as if to your treasured mentor or to your most junior trainee.” Kindness is also a good in itself, a prosocial virtue, related to a desire to help others effectively and to altruism. Reviewing is inherently an altruistic act, motivated by a desire to improve scientific knowledge and to give back to the community. Anecdotally, and from our personal experiences as authors, though we and others very much appreciate kind words and other recognitions from editors, the recognition that peer-reviewing receives in academic systems is so weak that we do not consider it a reward. In contrast, egotistical motivations for reviewing include perpetuation of one’s own mindset, the status quo, current practices, current doctrines, and interpretation of evidence; a paradoxical sense of superiority in being asked to provide peer review ; and satisfaction from the power imbalance between reviewer and reviewed.Constructive kindness requires empathy (“write as we would wish to be written to ourselves”), Since 1998, the Journal of Genetic Counseling has had an explicit policy of mentoring early-career researchers, operationalized through an “encouraging” philosophy and the ability of new authors to consult with the editor-in-chief about their manuscripts. A letter to the BMJ in 2002 called on statistical reviewers to be “thoughtful, constructive, and encouraging.”We created the term “supportive review” to describe our idea, believing it to be novel to spell out constructive kindness in this way. A Medline search from 1946 to 2021, conducted 2021-06-06 using the keywords “peer review” and synonyms for supportiveness and kindness identified 194 articles, 5 of which mentioned this issue. Advice to authors from one editor explicitly suggested to “be kind” in the opening paragraph, but then to move to “criticism” as if these are mutually exclusive concepts. Commandment 9 is specifically “Encourage!” urging the reviewer to “think of reviewing as a positive opportunity for touching the life of another scholar.” Commandment 10, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” specifically aligns with our own “write as we would wish to be written to ourselves.” A 2010 qualitative analysis of 99 reviews of rejected manuscripts found that reviewers “made significant efforts at kindness and gentility” and recognized that the importance of simultaneously maintaining a supportive and respectful community while entertaining rigorous and interesting debate is common to other aspects of academic life, for example, seminars and academic rounds. Ploegh, writing in a Nature op ed in 2011, highlighted the power imbalance between reviewer and authors, and wastefulness and delays associated with reviewers’ demands for additional experiments that are not essential to the work itself, sometimes called “reviewer experiments,” recommending that reviewers decide on the merits of the manuscript as submitted, and that editors exercise judgement and provide direction to authors when reviewers suggest further experiments. A Nature editorial in 2020 documenting issues with peer review was entitled “Peer review should be an honest, but collegial, conversation” and a career column by Clements in the same journal called for less meanness and unprofessionalism and more “positive comments” in scientific reviewing. Clements also suggests formal reviewer training as part of the way forward. A 2021 scoping review found that 58% of instructions to reviewers included some comment on “how to behave towards authors or how to keep. . .positive and constructive tone.”Writing in 2006, Dutta suggested 10 commandments for reviewers, many of which are in the spirit of supportive review  .28 Com There is, however, a very limited literature on supportive review in peer review: we were unable to identify previous publications focussed on this topic and are not aware of other journals that specifically endorse kindness.We later learned that the term “supportive peer review” was used in 2008 to describe the process of mutual review of higher education institutions through the European University Association’s Institutional Evaluation Program.Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease operationalizes our professional, supportive review policy through reviewer selection, choosing scientists whom we know to be rigorous and believe will provide supportive reviews. Recruitment of associate editors is purposive, and the process of recruitment explicitly includes discussion of the importance of supportiveness as one of the journal’s guiding principles. All associate editors are trained in supportive review. Editors are permitted to remove statements from reviewer’s reports before transmitting them to authors: most editors recognize the necessity for this but few journals have an explicit policy.  We provide editorial comments above the peer reviews, in which we attempt to help authors understand what we consider most important, and where we rephrase kindly as suggestions important concepts that might be more bluntly stated in the review below. We are concerned about the power imbalance between reviewer and author and attempt to redress this imbalance by giving direction. For example, if a reviewer suggests a radically different analytic approach from that taken originally, or large-scale supplementary analyses, or additional experiments that are not critical to the interpretation of the existing work, we exercise editorial judgment and indicate to authors whether we regard these as essential changes to the manuscript, or whether we invite the authors’ perspective and their constructive response to the suggestion. In Canada, many trainees at the postdoctoral and new investigator level, who are working in kidney health and disease, are enrolled in the competitive Kidney Research Scientist Core Education and National Training program (KRESCENT). All trainee scientists are trainee reviewers for CJKHD. Curriculum developed by journal editors for trainee reviewers in the KRESCENT program includes the importance of kindness, concrete ideas about how to write using judgment, wisdom, professionalism, and supportiveness, and feedback on their own reviewing practices assessed on real manuscripts  and the editor-in-chief. Decisions to accept peer review that is submitted with the work, in keeping with our portable review policy, are made by this same group, and an associate editor. This process takes into account the quality of the review, the quality of the response to the review, and the source of the peer review . For manuscripts that undergo peer review, once peer review has returned, the associate editor writes editorial feedback to augment the reviews, show emphasis, and suggest solutions. The associate editor’s draft email and decision are reviewed by one of the deputy editors before being sent. The editor-in-chief reviews all emails to authors. Each manuscript is considered on its own merits. There are no editorial meetings in which the relative claims of different papers compete. Cross-checking and review of each others’ work in this way maintains the principles established in editor training.38Editors of the Journal of Renal Nutrition express their support for the ideas represented here by co-authorship of this editorial. Editors of the American Journal of Physiology, Renal Physiology; AJKD; CJASN; Clinical Nephrology; JASN; Kidney International; Nature Reviews Nephrology; NDT; Nephron; Pediatric Nephrology; and Renal Society of Australia Journal were also supportive. Nature Reviews Nephrology, NDT, and Pediatric Nephrology will also respond in detail through the pages of their own journals. Editors in any discipline interested in joining a working group to develop and promote supportive review should contact the corresponding author. We ask other journals to consider a commitment to gradual implementation of supportive review, recognizing that some disciplines are likely better prepared for this than others. We foresee growing as a community of practice and recognize, as researchers, reviewers, editors, and authors, that we are one body sharing kinship in the critical evaluation of each others’ work in the pursuit of advancing knowledge (Confidence in science is diminished when scientists insist on a perspective despite evidence to the contrary, or when they engage in dubious statistical practices. Our team works with humility to recognize and avoid publishing judgments that are biased or science that is not internally valid. Getting peer review right is a key aspect of maintaining research quality and improving public trust.nowledge  and 2.


Publishing a scientific journal like Frontiers in Public Health has become more and more challenging. There are at least three reasons for the difficulties we encounter as Editors. First, scientific publishing is related to careers in many countries of the world, i.e., there is a strong pressure for professionals in biomedical sciences and public health to publish and thus increase their visibility and improve their curriculum. This problem has been boosted recently by the expansion of research funding, volume of publications and the adoption of meritocratic methods for career advancement in emerging countries such as China. The goal of publishing rapidly is starting to conflict with the main purposes of research, i.e., provide meaningful and good quality evidence that advances science and supports public health action. At this point there is an objective conflict between the two goals, the traditional one underlying the birth itself of scientific journals (make good science broadly available), and the newer one related to careers. The problem is particularly hot for open access journals like ours, that tend to be targeted by prospective authors in search for impact factor. It is urgent to address the problem of the conflict I have described, by reaffirming the scientific nature of publishing, which implies that the underlying values are quality and relevance rather than quantity and rapidity.The second reason is the changing world of (scientific) communication, which has become itself extremely rapid and inflated. It is increasingly difficult, even above a certain qualitative threshold, to cope with the avalanche of the published papers and of those submitted for publication. The role of the Editor of a journal requires an enormous effort of comparison between the papers submitted, those already published on the same topic, the assessment of the methodology used and the relevance for the field. I do not believe that a journal is simply a repository of papers, where the readers will judge themselves about quality and relevance. I believe in the Editor's responsibility, which implies an active editorial role. A public health journal cannot simply store papers that arrive spontaneously , but it is supposed to guide publishing according to validity, rigor and relevance. Otherwise, the journal may become overwhelmed by misleading articles that miss the opportunity of advancing the science and supporting action; something that may be already happening. The signal should emerge clearly from noise, which is not always the case in a world in which controversial and polarizing content is fueled by commercial incentives.In this context there is a third, practical problem that explains why publishing a journal is hard, the role of reviewers. It has become notoriously difficult to find good reviewers, or reviewers at all. Our journal struggles with the multiple refusals by colleagues invited to peer review manuscripts submitted in their field. This failure in finding (good) reviewers means that less experienced ones are involved, hampering the quality of reviews. In principle reviewing a paper can be done by a junior colleague, and this has an educational component; but this should occur under a senior person's supervision and responsibility, which happens rarely. Incentives to peer review papers are limited, essentially recognition in early stages of career. It is more rewarding publishing than reviewing, which creates an asymmetry.The reality is that a journal like ours can see a large number of manuscripts sometimes with aggressive accompanying messages that imply rapid and acritical acceptance, almost a claim to the right of publishing . We encounter difficulties in finding adequate reviewers, and we thereby risk falling into Type I and Type II errors, i.e., accepting wrong and poor papers or, vice versa, rejecting by mistake important contributions. By the way, it may even be in the (misinterpreted) interest of the journal falling into Type I errors, because controversial papers can be frequently cited and increase visibility and the Impact Factor. For example, as my colleague Marc Struelens and I have already stressed in a previous Perspective, research on COVID-19 has been so massive that it has been difficult to avoid both types of error . The hughttps://publicationethics.org/). However, my feeling is that the acceleration of research and its increasing amount has made the situation worse than in the past.Of course, all these problems are well known to journal Editors, and codes of practice have been developed, like COPE (Is it all negative? Of course not. As for many phenomena of the world we are currently living in, there are new and exciting perspectives together with the limitations and drawbacks I have described. What our publishing work reflects is a great expansion of the research community, which is quantitative but also qualitative: a large number of new colleagues are inter-connected, particularly from emerging countries and low-income countries. This corresponds to a less Euro-centric and Americo-centric view of science and public health, and with publications that in tendency reflect the problems of the world more faithfully than in journals of the past dominated by a limited number of institutions. However, to take advantage of these positive features of the expansion of borders, research communities, languages and skills, we need to reaffirm the key values of scientific publishing and find the most adequate procedures to transfer them into practice.The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


Preface illustration. The “first-last-author-credit” hierarchy has long been dominated in the scientific incentive system despite intensive calling for contribution-based credits (author contribution statement). In the scientific communities, senior researchers would still make a decision to recommend one’s promotion based on first and last positions in authorship rather than their contributions. Similarly, in the job market, institutions would acknowledge one’s credit by positions in authorship in a study for faculty recruitment, while overlooking the author contribution statement at the end of studies. Thus, the current authorship system has brought on the risks underlying authorship disputes and race/gender inequalities in credit allocation heavily, especially for early career researchers and female scientists. In addition, this is one of the major barriers to extend teamwork and academic collaboration. On the contrary, scrambling for first and last positions leads to prominent credit inflation—that is to be observed—the number of co-first and co-corresponding authors has been increasing dramatically. Thus, we shall propose a new contributionship to acknowledge the author’s credit for an open science and quantitative framework to tackle these issues. Credit: ZC and XRL.  Debates on how to determine positions in research authorship have not subsided. An institution funded by the United States National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) provided reports for investigating authorship disputes from 6,700 researchers in the world. It found out that nearly half of the respondents had suffered from naming disagreement, and 38% of them believed that they had experienced unfair authorship ranking . What maNature Springer, Elsevier, and Cell Press for fostering contributionship. However, the absence of standard measurement for this claim of scientific roles in the ACS makes it rather difficult to specifically evaluate and determine an author’s deserved credits.It is no doubt that publishers have been aware of this circumstance and have made efforts to prioritize authors’ credits above authorship arrangement. Scientific journals have long been firm and enthusiastic in asking authors to state and clarify what scientific roles they played in the actualization of a research study. The confirmation and clarification are usually made in a purpose-built section entitled, “Author Contribution Statement (ACS)” . FortunaFurthermore, a machine-readable standardized statement called contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT) emerged to recognize scientific credits for authors based on the 15 categories, which have been broadly implemented thus far. That notwithstanding, another issue of concern in the matter of ACS is the fact that CRediT is not available for all the fields of scholarship such as literature and library science. Recently, the contribution role ontology (CRO), a system, developed by the National Center for Data to Health (NCDH) recommended that CRediT be extended to include more statements . The incDespite the huge progress made so far, the scientific community still has challenges and difficulties accepting contributionship as a better alternative. In addition, institutions and job markets disapprove of faculty recruitment or promotion that is based on the ACS. One major reason for this aversion is the apparent stiff competition for faculty positions requiring institutions to make decisions rapidly and directly for the numerous researchers who are in their early career phase. This makes it less likely to deliberately evaluate authors’ contributions claimed in studies one at a time. Moreover, another reason that could impede the spread of contributionship is the lack of quantifiable criteria for answering questions on how scientific credits that are based on authorship contributions could be evaluated. In addition, contributionship in the current tone is likely to expose an author’s credit to a high risk of inflation, which may provide an “infinite credit resource” in evaluating one’s contribution. The latter could make the scientific community fairly cautious in confronting such initiatives.Open Science Framework (OSF) typically advocates three principles in knowledge production, which are transparency, equity, and accountability . In pracThe OSF is a powerful vehicle for facilitating and driving transparency through a deliberate reduction in the manipulation of model parameters and results. Meanwhile, equity and accountability, the values that the OSF pursues, emphasize the equal right of all the authors fully involved in scientific work. However, the authors are required to shoulder the same accountability for the weights they contribute to the work.Using the percentage-of-contribution indicator (PCI) and author CRediT score (ACS), we have proposed the quantitative framework as an alternative for acknowledging authors’ credits in authorship claims . Be that1 The ACF requires authors to self-estimate their contributions quantitatively ranging from 0 to 1.0 (contribution coefficient) by referring to either the CRediT or CRO statement. It also requires authors to provide details illustrating what parts would be handled in the corresponding categorical roles. Moreover, traceable modifications toward contributionship could be allowed on the ground of authors’ consensus before pre-registering the ACF. In addition, the email addresses or any pathways accessible to each author should be given in the ACF. Once the work has been prepared for submission, the ACF should be designed to be in line with the pre-registration imperative in the online submission system. Any disparities compared with the pre-registration should be clearly stated in the ACS. Finally, the integrated ACF encompassing the authorship, contribution contexts/coefficients, and contacts would be generated automatically by the submission system and would be further printed at the head of the published study.We propose a new framework that integrates Open Science principles and quantitative rules for acknowledging scientists’ credits in a study see . More spStep 1: Pre-registrationA standardized authorship and contribution form (ACF) requires the scientific communities to pre-register in repository or platform once research proposal is available:-Authorship:authors should be determined beforehand following the research proposal.-Contribution:contributions should be described by contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT) or contribution role ontology (CRO) system in detail, including the illustration about which parts would be done in each category .-Contribution coefficients:contribution coefficients should be provided grounded on actual contributions defined by CRediT or CRO system, but could be adjusted according to authors’ consensus; the sum of coefficients for all the authors is equal to one; individual coefficient should be marked alongside with author’s name.-Contacts:authors should provide the accessible contact details alongside with contributions for the sake of facilitating correspondence and accountability.Step 2: Formal submissionOnce the formal manuscript has been prepared, one author should be designated to submit it at online submission system:-Online submission system:author could upload the pre-registered ACF online submission system for automatic detection or fill ACF in system manually.-Author contribution statement (ACS) conflicts:if any disparities emerged from the comparison to pre-registration, the reasons for modifying authors or contributions should be stated clearly in this section.Step 3: Publication and after publicationOnce manuscript has been published at a journal, this ACF would be generated automatically to attach at the HEAD of final manuscript for acknowledging credits for each author:-Publication:ACF for final version should be attached at the first page of paper for detailing authorship/contributionship and history of modifying them; any disparities or modifications from pre-registration should be clearly claimed in ACF; individual coefficient should be marked alongside with author’s name.-After publication:contributions and corresponding credits could be evaluated by ACF with specific contexts and coefficients for authors in job markets; each author should be accountable for giving response for concerns and queries that readers raise aiming at his/her contributions in the paper as reported in ACF.It is apparently rewarding to adopt the proposed authorship framework embracing the Open Science and quantitative contributionship systems. The framework could help drastically reduce authorship disputes by allocating credits to authors with the quantitative contribution method. The latter would be prominently beneficial for ensuring authoring equality in the increasing teamwork and academic collaboration system. The sequence determination authorship has been criticized for creating hurdles in academic collaborations as it assigns credits mostly by the first-and-last-author system . The morMoreover, the tendencies for credit inflation may be controlled by quantitative contributionship. To tackle credit disputes in authorship, marking co-first and co-corresponding authors in one study is gradually becoming mainstream in the scientific community. Nevertheless, the trend appears to have been abused in the current form . We haveIn addition, the transparency needed to determine authorship would be strengthened by the use of this framework. Pre-registration provides traceable and detectable access for observing the modification of authorship. It prevents honorary or guest authors from compromising the submission process. On the one hand, it seems to be a common configuration to add renowned researchers as honorary authors as a way of increasing the credits of the submitted articles and impressing the editors . On the It is worth highlighting that this framework makes accountability feasible for contributionship and, thus, maybe a blow to the widespread fake-paper factories and academic fraud systems. In Chinese Academy Science (CAS) institutions, the requisites for applying for tenured positions are at least eight studies that are published in high-profile journals (at least IF > 5.0) during a period of 3–6 years. The publications should have a varied outlook of independence and corresponding authorship. Even if doctors who are in their early career phase work in low-ranking institutions , their promotion will require at least three studies with authorship positions. Additional positions in authorship hardly have any credits in the current scientific incentive system, at least in mainland China. Consequently, the serious career pressure often mounted on researchers to publish studies as either first or corresponding authors is one of the main reasons why young researchers indulge in academic fraud at the expense of an auspicious long-term career prospect. They settle for predatory journals or fake publishing firms.The new framework provides transparent ways for authors to obtain credits they merit based on accountable and traceable contributions by quantitative metrics. A key advantage of this framework is that it discourages academic misconduct from authors. On the contrary, transparently reporting specific contributions of authors with contact information makes accountability feasible. It is also beneficial for investigative agencies that might want to examine specific authors who may have been reported for misconduct.The caveats for implementing this contribution framework should be reiterated. Unexpected academic bullying may occur when the contribution coefficients are rated. Even if the extreme battles or disputes for authorship positions are significantly eased, it is hard to estimate the risk of what—bullying—junior researchers could suffer in the coefficient competition. There is less power for them to go against the senior researchers in allocating the coefficients. Another challenge is the high risk of abuse as stated in “Goodhart’s Law” . AlthougThis is not a conceptual call for acknowledging each author’s credits but aims to provide pragmatic ways to shift authorship from the “first-last-author-credit” hierarchy to a transparent, equal, and accountable contributionship. Compared to previous ones, this contributionship presents a quite mild and balanced scheme, neither in abolishing the “sequence-authorship-credit” hierarchy nor in overreaching absolutely objective index , which p2 Finally, attaching the ACF generated from an automatic system at the head of academic papers would make it less possible for a snub by institutions .Contributionship has been pre-registered in Open Science Framework (OSF) at ZC: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, methodology, and writing—original draft. XRL: conceptualization and validation. KM, XYL, and XZ: methodology and validation. ZF: funding acquisition. HC-P: conceptualization and supervision. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.