The Biochemical Society is pleased to announce that its peer-reviewed journal, Bioscience Reports will be accepting submissions for Open Access from 2nd April with the first full open access issue available from August 2012. All papers published from the August issue will be freely available online and subscriptions will no longer be charged from January 2013.
For more than 30 years Bioscience Reports has published articles on the fundamental mechanisms involved in cell biology, molecular biology and biochemistry to enable our understanding of normal development and diseases.
The Biochemical Society and its publishing arm, Portland Press Ltd, are committed both to widening access to the scientific literature and to providing a fast, painless publishing experience for authors. In addition to welcoming submissions of all good-quality papers within its remit, Bioscience Reports is supported by the prestigious Biochemical Journal. The Editors of the Biochemical Journal will, with the authors’ permission, refer good-quality, sound research papers, together with the reviewers’ comments, to Bioscience Reports. Authors will then receive a swift decision on the basis of those reports, speeding up considerably the time to publication.
Caroline Black, Managing Director of Portland Press, has confirmed the reasons for the transition of Bioscience Reports to open access: “Portland Press is committed to exploring all ways of broadening access to and dissemination of research. We believe that for Bioscience Reports open access is the most appropriate way to achieve this and are excited about the opportunities ahead for the journal. This development also supports the Biochemical Society’s mission to promote the molecular and cellular biosciences for the benefit of all.”
Editor-in-Chief Wanjin Hong also believes that this is a positive move for Bioscience Reports: “It is my experience that more authors are seeking to make their papers more accessible to others. In 2010-11, we have seen a steady increase in Opt2Pay submissions, whereby authors pay to have their articles freely available immediately upon publication. All submissions will continue to be rigorously peer reviewed and only good-quality, sound scientific studies will be published. The only real change is that from August 2012 we are providing immediate free access to this high-quality science.”
Bioscience Reports will be the third open access title published by Portland Press Limited (joining ASN NEURO [www.asnneuro.org] and Cell Biology International Reports [www.cellbiolintrep.org]). Portland Press has also broadened access to its journal content to unprecedented levels through a number of other initiatives: all Biochemical Society journals offer “Opt2Pay” so that authors can comply with funding mandates; articles are available free or at very low cost to institutions in developing countries through the HINARI scheme; after a short embargo period, access barriers to articles in our journals are lifted; our library licence permits ‘walk-in’ access; and we make individual articles available to rent for a modest fee through DeepDyve.
