Open access publisher Hindawi has reassured authors, editors, peer reviewers and readers that handling of academic research articles will continue without disruption. Hindawi teams around the world are working from home, but the community should not notice any differences in interactions with Hindawi, with peer review or publication of open access research.
As Hindawi’s commitment to ensure accepted peer reviewed research is published during this time, Hindawi has introduced a fast-track workflow for papers submitted on coronavirus/COVID-19 which are suitable for publication. To this end, Hindawi has signed up to the ‘Wellcome statement on sharing data and findings related to COVID-19’ and fully support the commitments laid out by it.
Hindawi has connected with its open science publishing colleagues at PLOS to maximise availability of submitted papers via preprint servers such as bioRxiv or medRxiv at point of submission and will ensure its authors consider submitting to relevant PLOS journals if it believe the impact of their work would be better served through a different title. Hindawi is also working with its colleagues at the Royal Society to ensure any registered reports submitted on COVID-19 are forwarded for consideration in their journal Royal Society Open Science which is better placed to handle these types of submissions.
In these extraordinary times it is crucial that Hindawi works with authors, editors, reviewers and the wider publishing community to fast-track publications that could help mitigate the pandemic, aid research into COVID-19, or help expedite epidemiological or vaccine studies regardless of the journal or platform they are published in. Hindawi is committed to increase the visibility of work published in this area by Hindawi titles and will work hard to showcase this as broadly as possible on social media and own website in the weeks and months to come.