ReadCube expands literature management with new AI Assistant and comprehensive search

October 1, 2024

Digital Science announces ReadCube Pro, an AI-powered expansion of ReadCube, offering researchers new tools to simplify and accelerate literature management and literature monitoring workflows.

The new AI Assistant and Literature Monitoring in ReadCube – an award-winning leader in literature management and full-text document delivery – transform the way research teams access, organize, review and monitor scholarly literature by providing them with enhanced search capabilities while helping to significantly reduce time spent on manual work. ReadCube leverages the power of the Dimensions database of 145+ million publications to quickly and easily find what’s important.

Announcing the new features today in his keynote address at AI in Drug Discovery Xchange in San Francisco, ReadCube Co-founder and CEO Robert McGrath said the new tools help researchers focus on higher value work. According to data from Dimensions, the volume of published literature has grown about 30% over the past five years, putting pressure on research organizations to remain competitive while also ensuring their research teams are reading all articles relevant to their areas of focus.

“Literature monitoring and literature review are critically important for life sciences organizations, yet in practice the work remains highly manual and involves multiple teams and tools,” McGrath said.

“ReadCube works the way researchers do, letting them ask questions of the literature in their own words and get to an answer quickly. But unlike many other AI tools, our solution provides transparency and flexibility, enabling users to configure how AI is applied to each stage of their workflow. These AI enhancements, along with a host of enhanced search and library features, are designed to radically streamline many common research workflows,” he said.

ReadCube’s new AI Assistant and Literature Monitoring offer users the ability to:

Integrate AI seamlessly with existing literature workflows
Search all 145+ million publications in the Dimensions database, including full-text
Transform natural language queries into hyper-specific searches through AI Assisted query builder
Refine and narrow search results with smart AI filtering
Receive highly relevant, AI-curated email notifications about new additions to ReadCube libraries.

ReadCube’s new AI Assistant enables researchers to analyze and summarize scientific articles. Researchers can query collections of articles within their library, and access contextual answers to complex questions within documents. With an improved user interface and real-time collaboration capabilities, the AI Assistant simplifies research tasks, enabling teams to work more efficiently and stay ahead in today’s fast-paced, innovation-driven environment, all in a private and secure environment.

Dr Daniel Hook, CEO of Digital Science, said: “Today’s announcement is a further step in realizing the potential of AI for the benefit of scientific research. It is our hope that our solutions will enable researchers in all disciplines and geographies to be more effective. In particular, for those in the fields of life sciences and pharmaceutical medicine, we believe that our tools can help to speed up discoveries that make a difference to health treatments and outcomes around the globe.”

Discover more at the ReadCube website.

The Company of Biologists appoints Frontereco SAS as exclusive representative in France

October 1, 2024

We are delighted to announce that we have signed an exclusive agreement with Frontereco SAS, a distribution company that helps develop and market electronic content for universities, research centres and hospitals, to represent us in France.

This new partnership offers opportunities to expand our Read & Publish initiative in France and benefit the academic community by allowing them to publish their research fee-free and immediately Open Access in our leading peer-reviewed journals: Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open.

Eddy Loiseau, Managing Director, Frontereco SAS, says:

“I am pleased to be able to work with The Company of Biologists as their Read & Publish agreements offer unlimited fee-free Open Access publishing plus access to high quality journals, benefitting authors and academic libraries in France”

Rich Blount, Regional Sales Manager at The Company of Biologists, says:

“We are delighted to be working alongside Eddy and Frontereco SAS. The Company of Biologists already has a high level of article output from French researchers, and it will be exciting to grow this further and build relationships with the library community. This in turn will allow academics to reap the benefits of our Read & Publish initiative.”

Open Access and Transparency: EDP Sciences Releases 2024 Transparency Report for Mathematics Journals

October 1, 2024

This news is part of EDP Sciences’ ongoing “Road to Open” series, now in its ninth update, which highlights our commitment to transparency in open access publishing. Here we focus on the importance of transparency in open access, at the occasion of the release of our 2024 transparency report, showcasing the financial and operational details of the Subscribe to Open model for mathematics journals. Transparency in open access publication, both financial and otherwise, ensures trust, accountability, and the integrity of the scholarly communication process. It allows researchers, institutions, and the public to understand the costs, funding sources, promoting equity and ethical practices in knowledge dissemination. Stay updated on our journey towards open science and join the conversation on social media with #RoadToOpen.

EDP Sciences and SMAI (Société de Mathématiques Appliquées et Industrielles) have just published their latest transparency report for 2024, marking the fourth consecutive year of open access (OA) publication under the Subscribe to Open (S2O) model – and the fourth transparency report. This initiative continues to enhance accessibility while maintaining a strong commitment to transparency and financial accountability for the six mathematics journals involved, promoting an equitable OA model that benefits both readers and authors.

The 2024 report highlights several key achievements and ongoing developments:

Sustained Open Access: All six journals remain open access in 2024. This accomplishment results from successful subscription renewals and continued support from the global mathematics library community, who endorse the S2O model’s non-author-paid open access.
Moderate subscription price increases: Subscription prices for the journals increased by 2% in 2023 and 2024, a modest adjustment reflecting inflation while maintaining affordability.
Stable article output and usage: In 2023, the six journals published 449 articles, comparable to the previous year, with full-text downloads remaining steady at 436,655. This reflects stable engagement with the content despite the absence of a significant increase in downloads, likely due to the mathematics community’s reliance on preprint servers such as arXiv.
Financial sustainability: The number of subscriptions continued to increase. Revenue from traditional subscriptions covered 51% of the publication costs in 2023, with additional funding from institutions and supporters. The average publication cost across the journals is €950 per article, and a concerted effort to reduce costs is ongoing. In 2023, 72% of costs were covered by combined revenue sources, marking an improvement in the financial outlook of the journals, though some deficit remains.
Impact of national agreements, partnerships, and additional funding: The French National Open Access Agreement, in place until 2026, alongside a renewed partnership with Knowledge Unlatched, continues to provide crucial financial support. Further backing from the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Fonds National pour la Science Ouverte (FNSO) has played an essential role in securing the transition to open access. These additional sources of funding, along with contributions from CNRS Mathématiques and institutional supporters, have bolstered the journals’ ability to cover publication costs. Together, these efforts ensure long-term sustainability while offering libraries transformative models that support open access without author charges.

This year’s report also includes an analysis of the evolution of subscription prices, detailed publication statistics, and a breakdown of revenue sources and publication costs. As the mathematics community continues to embrace non-author paid open access, EDP Sciences and SMAI remain committed to refining and improving the S2O model. The report reaffirms their dedication to fostering transparency, reducing costs, and expanding access to high-quality mathematical research.

We invite you to explore the complete 2024 Transparency Report and more detailed information is available to interested libraries on request.

Code Ocean and Springer Nature expand partnership across the Nature Portfolio to help authors better share their code and data

September 25, 2024

Authors submitting primary papers to the Nature branded journals, including Nature and all the Nature Research journals, can now share their code and data via the Code Ocean platform as part of the manuscript submission process. This extended partnership between Code Ocean and Springer Nature enables more authors to benefit from enhanced reproducibility, transparency and research efficiency, enhancing the author experience and helping to eliminate hurdles in sharing data and code.

Code Ocean’s CEO Simon Adar commented:

“This partnership demonstrates our commitment to computational reproducibility and accessibility in scientific research. The integration of Code Ocean with Nature Portfolio’s submission platform streamlines code sharing as part of the article submission process and ensures that code submitted to these journals meets rigorous standards for reproducibility.”

Erika Pastrana, Editorial Director, Nature Journals, said:

“This collaboration represents a significant step forward in our commitment to computational reproducibility in published research. We want to support all authors in being able to openly share and publish key research objects. Enabling this integrated workflow across the Nature branded journals means more authors will benefit from a streamlined experience – increasing transparency in research, reducing duplication of effort and facilitating the faster advancement of science.”

Code Ocean is a Computational Science platform for researchers, supporting them with a fast and efficient way to start, scale, collaborate, and reproduce computational research central to their work. As part of the integration, Nature journals also allow authors who have other means of sharing code, for example, via GitHub or Zenodo, to provide those details directly through the journal submission platform. Using this integration, editors will be able to track the sharing of code directly on the submission platform, and where appropriate, will automatically see the relevant information and instructions to reviewers to peer review the code.

Springer Nature has long been committed to advancing reproducibility and open research practices. This includes steps taken to improve reproducibility of published research by the Nature portfolio journals, the first of its kind pilot exploring reproducibility on highly selective titles, the introduction of Springer Nature Data policies and continued support for protocol sharing, including through our open repository for community-contributed protocols, Protocol Exchange.

Driving environmental sustainability: lessons learnt from the Australian Publishers Association

September 25, 2024

The recent Australian Publishers Association (APA) survey on sustainability is shedding light on the industry’s role in addressing climate change. By gathering insights on the environmental practices of publishers, the survey highlights both progress and areas for improvement in reducing carbon footprints and adopting eco-friendly operations. This initiative is helping to drive meaningful changes within the publishing sector, encouraging businesses to align with sustainability goals and contribute to global climate action efforts.

What do the results tell us?

The survey tracks the progress of 27 Australian publishers across education, academic and professional publishing. The top results include:

Publishers are increasing their capacity to address sustainability: Over 50% of publishers now have a person or team with direct responsibility for developing the sustainability agenda.
Publishers are also setting specific targets: over a quarter of the respondents are setting targets on areas such as using FSC or recycled paper, reducing energy, waste and the use of plastics.
Publishers are gathering carbon data: 44% of respondents are collecting environmental data from their suppliers with just under 20% calculating their own carbon emissions.

The sustainability working group of the APA is aiming to continue to measure progress in the industry. The 2024 results were released alongside five practical steps that publishers can take to reduce their environmental impact.

UNSW Press CEO Kathy Bail, chair of the Sustainability Working Group, called on all publishers in Australia to get involved: ‘It’s important for publishers to make a start. With these recommendations, every publisher can identify some achievable wins. For instance, we know that appointing someone or a team in your organisation to look after sustainability can be a powerful driver for positive change.

Another initiative of the Australian sustainability working group is the Greener Publishing Guide, an introduction to current environmental best practice for publishers.

Canadian Science Publishing and the Royal Society of Canada are expanding the scope of their collaboration

September 25, 2024

Building on the momentum of several years of working closely together to publish the multidisciplinary, open-access journal FACETS, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP) and the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) are expanding the scope of their collaboration by inviting multidisciplinary contributions germane to the social sciences, and through the establishment of a board of RSC peer reviewers.

The Royal Society of Canada Reviewer Board will be supported by the RSC in collaboration with CSP journal FACETS, the official journal of the RSC’s Academy of Science. The RSC and CSP are not-for-profit organizations who share the goal of supporting and promoting Canadian research within Canada and globally.

Through this collaboration, the RSC and CSP’s journal FACETS will establish a board of RSC peer reviewers. This voluntary program will gather experts from across the RSC who are interested in being invited to serve as peer reviewers several times per year, to contribute to the publication of rigorous, high-quality research.

Together, the RSC and FACETS are dedicated to growing a community of skilled and knowledgeable reviewers. Join the reviewer board to:

Play a vital role in advancing scientific research by participating in the peer review process
Earn distinguished recognition on the FACETSand RSC websites for your vital contributions as an RSC Reviewer, helping to advance rigorous, high-quality research
Contribute to the growth of Open Science in Canada
Access training resources and participate in webinars and workshops

This program is open to all RSC Members whose expertise aligns with the scope of FACETS. Members are encouraged to commit to joining the board for a three-year term, with the option for extension. Click here to learn more and register for the program.

Clarivate Unveils Comprehensive Framework to Evaluate the Societal Impact of Research

September 25, 2024

Clarivate Plc, a leading global provider of transformative intelligence, today announced the development of a comprehensive framework for evaluating the societal impact of research. The approach has been outlined in a new report published today by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)™ to address the growing demand for demonstrating the benefits of research and development (R&D) investments across various sectors of society.

The report, A responsible framework for evaluating the societal impact of research, outlines a responsible and robust foundation for evaluation that goes beyond traditional scholarly output and includes a wide range of data sources. The new framework will be incorporated into the forthcoming Web of Science Research Intelligence^TM platform.

Emmanuel Thiveaud, Senior Vice President, Research and Analytics, Academia & Government at Clarivate, said: “As global R&D spending continues to rise, funders, governments and institutions face increasing pressure to ensure that their investments provide measurable benefits in areas such as health, climate change and technological advancement. This new framework developed by the Institute for Scientific Information provides the tools necessary to meet this demand, allowing users to focus on specific research areas most relevant to their organization’s mission and long-term objectives.”

The framework developed by Clarivate addresses core challenges in evaluating societal impact:

Recognizing the varied and complex needs of society: To address the diversity of societal needs, the framework categorizes societal needs into eight facets: Political & Policy, Legal & Governance, Economic, Human Capital, Medical, Social & Cultural, Technological and Environmental.
Balancing qualitative and quantitative approaches: The framework will extend beyond traditional quantitative indicators to enable richer and more nuanced qualitative assessments.
Navigating the long timeframes between research discovery to societal application: To mitigate the challenge of lengthy delays between research being conducted and any resultant societal benefits, the evaluation framework contains both lagging and leading indicators. Lagging indicators offer retrospective insights by analyzing past outputs and activities, while leading indicators are forward-looking and analyze recent signals that suggest the potential to generate future societal benefits.

Dr Dmytro Filchenko, Senior Director, Research & Analytics at the Institute for Scientific Information said: “Our framework leverages our extensive resources of enriched data which goes beyond scholarly output and extends to our data on patents, clinical trials, policy documents, media publications, data sets, educational outputs, funding data and much more, as well as external data sources where necessary. This comprehensive approach ensures a nuanced and accurate assessment of societal impact across various domains.”

Each of the eight facets in the framework contains multiple individual metrics, allowing for a detailed and customizable evaluation. The overall societal impact for each facet will be presented responsibly in a Societal Impact Profile^TM with the underlying individual metrics available to support transparency and more granular analyses. This will allow Web of Science Research Intelligence platform

PolicyMap future-proof access with OpenAthens single sign-on

September 24, 2024

PolicyMap announces integration with OpenAthens to future-proof access to its comprehensive mapping and analytics platform, giving users a simple and seamless access experience.

PolicyMap is delighted to announce it now offers customers simple and secure access to its mapping and analytics platform with OpenAthens single sign-on. The strategic move to future-proof access to their platform comes as PolicyMap invests in a major overhaul of their platform and upgrades to the latest mapping technologies.

PolicyMap empowers over 1,000 organizations with unparalleled access to comprehensive mapping and data analytics tools. Based in the US, its services are used across a variety of industries including academic, banking and lending, government, health, tech, non-profit, public library, real estate, and retail.

The benefit corporation is one of a growing number of data analytics services that have joined OpenAthens in recent years to enable a more seamless access experience on their platform. No technical skills are needed to access the user-friendly interface which makes powerful data visualization accessible to all users. Policymakers, business leaders, data-literate researchers, and anyone with an interest in data mapping can now benefit from a winning combination of data insights from trusted sources and seamless access anytime, anywhere.

PolicyMap’s purpose to support public good aligns perfectly with OpenAthens’ values of ensuring easy access to knowledge. Mapping data can be used to assess how cities can mitigate the impact of climate change, identify which areas lack affordable housing, and highlight disparities in healthcare for specific demographics.

Craig Henderson, chief product development officer, PolicyMap:

“We’re excited to announce that organizations leveraging federated authentication can now seamlessly access PolicyMap through OpenAthens. This integration not only simplifies secure access to our platform but also reinforces our commitment to empowering users to transform data into actionable insights.”

Jon Bentley, commercial director, OpenAthens:

“Knowledge comes in many formats and the visual impact of maps cannot be underestimated. We are delighted we can support PolicyMap in driving engagement for users across organizations and institutions simply and securely.”

Visit the PolicyMap website to learn more about their services.

IOP Publishing shines a light on the power of constructive feedback in peer review

September 24, 2024

In celebration of Peer Review Week, IOP Publishing (IOPP) is raising awareness of the importance of constructive, respectful peer review feedback and how innovations can help to create a positive peer review culture. The campaign shares examples of unhelpful reviews received by researchers early in their careers through a short video and highlights the emotional toll of such feedback. It then contrasts these hurtful comments with their impressive academic achievements.

Laura Feetham-Walker, IOPP’s Reviewer Engagement Manager, explained: “With this video, we aim to draw attention to the importance of professional and constructive peer reviews. Too many researchers encounter comments that are not only non-constructive and upsetting but can also hinder their progress.”

IOP Publishing continues to champion professionalism in peer review through initiatives like its free Peer Review Excellence training and certification program, specifically designed for early-career researchers in the physical sciences. This program equips reviewers with the skills to provide constructive feedback while recognising their contributions through IOP’s Trusted Reviewer status.

IOPP has introduced several innovations to make the review process more transparent and inclusive, such as co-review, double-anonymous peer review, transparent peer review, and offering reviewers the option to receive feedback on their reports. These initiatives aim to make the peer review process more supportive and respectful for all researchers.

Open Access agreement between The Company of Biologists and University of California continues for an additional three years

September 24, 2024

The Company of Biologists is delighted to announce a further three-year Open Access agreement with the University of California (UC).

This agreement, which follows on from the initial 3-year variation agreement, runs from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2026 and continues to cover Open Access publishing in The Company of Biologists’ journals: Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open.

The agreement enables corresponding authors at all ten UC campuses to publish an uncapped number of research articles immediately Open Access. The agreement also provides researchers on all UC campuses with unlimited access to Development, Journal of Cell Science and Journal of Experimental Biology and their archives dating back to 1853.

Under the agreement, the UC libraries will automatically pay the first $1,000 of a discounted Open Access fee, or Article Processing Charge (APC), for all UC authors who choose to publish in one of The Company of Biologists’ journals. Authors are asked to pay the remainder if they have research funds available to do so. Authors who do not have research funds available can request full funding of the APC from the libraries. This ensures that lack of research funds does not present a barrier for UC authors who wish to publish Open Access in The Company of Biologists’ journals.

Rich Schneider, PhD, Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, University of California at San Francisco, says:

“I’m thrilled that the University of California has renewed its transformative Open Access agreement with The Company of Biologists, a mission-driven, community-led publisher that shares UC’s goal of making the scholarly publishing landscape more open. I was a member of the team that negotiated the first Open Access agreement between UC and The Company of Biologists. I have been an author with The Company of Biologists for more than 20 years, and since the start of UC’s partnership with the Company in 2021, UC authors have published more than 85 Open Access articles in its journals, increasing the visibility and impact of their research. I hope that even more UC authors will take advantage of this renewed agreement and make their scholarship freely available to researchers and anyone else around the world by publishing Open Access in The Company of Biologists’ journals.”

Shelly Turner, Head of Sales and Business Development at The Company of Biologists, says:

“We are delighted to continue our Open Access collaboration with the UC libraries helping to create a sustainable and inclusive path to OA publishing and look forward to working together to promote the growth of Open Access publishing in the biological and biomedical sciences.”

View current participating institutions

New open access agreement between the University of California and Taylor & Francis

September 24, 2024

Memorandum of understanding signed for four-year agreement that will empower more UC authors to share their scholarship openly with the world

The University of California (UC) and Taylor & Francis today announced a memorandum of understanding for a four-year read and publish agreement that will make it easier and more affordable for UC researchers to publish open access (OA) articles in nearly 2,500 Taylor & Francis journals. The new partnership between UC and one of the ten largest publishers of UC research advances a mutual goal to empower more authors to share their scholarship openly with readers around the globe.

Under the agreement, the UC Libraries will automatically cover the OA fees in full for any UC corresponding author who chooses to publish OA in Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals. Authors of articles accepted for publication in a hybrid or full OA title will have the opportunity to choose OA at no cost to them.

Taylor & Francis has one of the world’s largest Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) portfolios, with more journals in the Arts & Humanities Citation Index® than any other publisher. The new agreement advances a broader goal within UC to expand support for authors publishing HSS research, areas that generally have had limited funding for OA publishing.

To maximize the number of UC researchers who can benefit from the newly signed agreement, authors of qualifying articles published since January 1, 2024, will be given the opportunity to retrospectively convert their article to open access, with the OA fees fully covered. Authors who have already published OA since January 1 will be offered refunds for OA fees already paid.

In addition to extensive OA publishing support, the agreement also ensures the UC community has continued reading access to nearly 1,300 Taylor & Francis journals.

“With Taylor & Francis’ extensive Humanities and Social Sciences suite of journals, this new agreement offers an exciting opportunity for UC researchers to share their work more openly and widely than ever before,” said Mark Hanna, Associate Professor of History at UC San Diego and chair of the UC faculty Academic Senate’s systemwide committee on library and scholarly communication. “It underscores UC’s commitment to advancing academic research, removing barriers to access, and amplifying the impact of the important work being done across disciplines.”

“The University of California has been a pioneer in advancing OA in the United States, and we have a shared belief in the benefits of opening up the latest research,” said Jeff Voci, Senior Vice President & Commercial Lead – Americas at Taylor & Francis. “I am therefore delighted that many months of work with the UC Libraries team has resulted in a creative solution which fulfills their ambitious objectives. Since 2016, our UC agreements have included help for researchers to choose OA and the new partnership will significantly extend that support, boosting the reach and impact of trusted knowledge.”

Taylor & Francis is a leading publisher of open access journals, books, and research platforms. UC joins over 950 global institutions partnering with Taylor & Francis through open access agreements, including 14 others in the Americas.

Clarivate Reveals Citation Laureates 2024

September 24, 2024

Annual recognition highlights researchers with extraordinary citation records and societal impact, poised for Nobel recognition

Clarivate Plc , a leading global provider of transformative intelligence, today unveiled the Citation Laureates™ 2024 list – used to forecast future Nobel Prize recipients. These 22 exceptional scientists and economists spanning six countries have demonstrated such groundbreaking impact in their fields that their work is considered of Nobel stature. Experts at the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)™ at Clarivate™ have identified 75 Citation Laureates prior to their Nobel success – often several years before they received Nobel honors.

This year’s Citation Laureates have made significant contributions to advancing key areas, including clean energy, nanotechnology, 3D protein structures, the economic impact of corruption, heart disease, molecular dynamics, quantum computing, genetic imprinting and condensed matter physics.

The list highlights 22 individuals based at leading academic institutions and corporate organizations. This year, 11 are based in the United States, six in the United Kingdom, two in Switzerland, and one each in Germany, Israel and Japan. These individuals have authored foundational research papers in their fields that are exceptionally highly cited and have had a broad societal impact.

John M. Jumper, Director at Google DeepMind and a Citation Laureate 2024, said: “Being named a Citation Laureate is a recognition of the impact our work has had – it’s not just about our discovery, but about the groundbreaking science being done on top of our discovery. This award recognizes that we are the shoulders on which other researchers are standing to see further. I’m deeply passionate that we’re able to make the work of scientists faster so medicine and science can work better for society.”

Demis Hassabis, CEO and Co-Founder at Google DeepMind and a Citation Laureate 2024, said: “I’m deeply honored to be named a Citation Laureate for 2024. I’ve dedicated my career to AI because of its potential to advance science and improve billions of lives, and AlphaFold is the first proof point of this promise. AlphaFold has been used by over 2 million researchers to advance critical work, from enzyme design to drug discovery. I believe AI will be one of the most beneficial technologies ever, enabling cures for devastating diseases, delivering truly personalized medicine, and powering ‘science at digital speed’.”

Emmanuel Thiveaud, Senior Vice President for Research & Analytics, Academia & Government at Clarivate said: “The Citation Laureates program is a tribute to the visionary minds driving innovation and societal impact across diverse fields of research. Their influence, evidenced by their extensive citation records, highlights the significant impact of their work on shaping future discoveries and contributions to societal progress. At Clarivate, we are proud to spotlight these pioneering individuals whose work offers transformative potential.”

Since 2002, analysts at the Institute for Scientific Information have drawn on publication and citation data from trusted journals in the Web of Science™ to identify potential Nobel Prize recipients in the fields of Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. Out of nearly 61 million articles and proceedings indexed in the Web of Science since 1970, only 0.01% have been cited more than 2,000 times. Citation Laureates are selected from the authors of this group of papers.