The titles of our three new
Communications journals reflect our
position within the Nature Research
family of journals. We launched the
journals to fulfill a specific need for
broad but selective open access journals
for researchers who wish to publish in
and are confident in quality of Nature
Research journals. Our journals follow
Nature Research best practice policies
workflows and guidelines. We apply the
same level of editorial rigor to our
processes, but look for less broad
interest and significance than the
nature branded journals including Nature
Communications. When I heard about the
new journal and that it would be a broad
scope biology open access journal I was
really interested in getting in on sort
of the ground floor of something and
starting something new. But we're very
different from the other Nature journals
in that we are open access, we
are online only and we do have working
academics as part of our editorial board
to help us to reach all of those subject
areas within biology and to have the
necessary breadth of expertise that we
need within the journal. So in submission
we are looking for a meaningful advance
to specific fields which brings some biological insights at a higher level.
Unlike other Nature branded journals, we do not require really broad
readership or mechanistic details. We are aiming to
achieve a fast, streamlined publication. I
think we are different from other journals
in that we really keep our authors' best
interests in our heart. Once we are
committed to certain manuscripts, we do
our best to help the authors navigate
the entire publication process. The aim of
Communications Biology is to publish a
wide range of biological research, so
right now we're really excited about the
diversity of topics that we've already
covered in the articles that we've
published so far and as well in the
articles that we've got in the pipeline.
So, we're looking at topics that range
from neuroscience to ecology and
evolution from biophysics to plants and
we're just really looking to kind of
keep that diversity going as we move
forward. We apply slightly less stringent
criteria than the other Nature journals,
so if you were to submit your manuscript
to for example Nature Communications
it doesn't quite meet their editorial
threshold, then Communications Biology
would actually be a really great home
for your article. Our editorial board
members come from all over the world and
from all its sub disciplines within
biology. We're really excited to share
Communications Biology with the world
and I encourage anybody out there who
wants to contribute to the journal just
reach out to me if they have any
questions
