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The Climate Governance Initiative and 67 Bricks embark on the creation of a new Global Knowledge Hub

The Climate Governance Initiative and 67 Bricks are pleased to announce their new partnership as part of their ongoing mission to support board directors to lead the conversation on climate change.

Following an initial discovery phase to establish critical requirements for the creation of a flexible and scalable ‘global knowledge hub’, we are now delighted to be working on the build phase of this important resource.  

The Initiative will utilise 67 Bricks’ comprehensive experience in building customer-centric solutions to design a truly user-focused platform. The hub will be designed to work for both current needs and future plans, to ensure the Initiative and its global network of Chapters have the right tools in place to continue to develop and evolve their strategy to address climate change by building board director capacity.

Jennifer Schivas, 67 Bricks, said:  “Climate change is an issue that affects us all, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to work with CGI to tackle it at a global scale. We are excited by their plans for future development and look forward to designing a first-class solution to ensure they achieve

Emily Farnworth, Director, Centre for Climate Engagement, Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge and Head of Secretariat, Climate Governance Initiative, said: “Working with 67 Bricks presents an opportunity to build a powerful and scalable knowledge-sharing platform that will empower board directors around the world to find the content and resources they need to drive climate action – today and into the future.”

Double-anonymous peer review reduces reviewer bias, finds three-year British Ecological Society trial

Today the British Ecological Society has published the results of a three-year randomised trial comparing double and single-anonymous peer review in the journal Functional Ecology. The findings indicate a reduction in reviewer bias when author identities are anonymised. 

The three-year randomised trial in the journal Functional Ecology, provides the most compressive data yet on the effects of anonymising authors during scholarly journal peer review. 

Double-anonymous peer review, also referred to as double-blind peer review, is where author identities are not disclosed to reviewers. This differs from single-anonymous peer review where reviewers know the identities of the authors, which is more traditional in life science disciplines. 

The study found that when author identities were anonymised and reviewers did not know whose paper they were reviewing (double-anonymous review), peer review outcomes were similar across author demographics. 

In contrast, when author identities were known by reviewers (single-anonymous review), outcomes depended on author demographics. Papers with a first author residing in a higher-income country or a country with a higher average English-proficiency received higher ratings from reviewers and were more likely to be invited for revision or resubmission compared to papers with first authors from a lower income country or country with a lower average English-proficiency. 

Interestingly, anonymising author identities had no effect on gender differences in reviewer ratings or editor decisions. 

Professor Charles Fox, University of Kentucky, lead author of the study and previously the Executive Editor for Functional Ecology said: 

“Our trial provides strong evidence that authors from higher-income and/or English-speaking countries receive significant benefits to being identified to reviewers during the peer review process, and that anonymizing author-identities (e.g., double-blind review) reduces this bias, making the peer review process more equitable. 

“It’s critical for science, and for the scientists involved, that peer review be a fair and unbiased process. The results of this trial will help inform publishers on the best ways to minimise some sources of bias in the publishing process.” 

Based on the strong evidence provided from the trial, the British Ecological Society will begin transitioning its journals to mandatory double-anonymous peer review. This will begin with Functional Ecology, with the other journals published by the BES to follow. 

Andrea Baier, Director of Publishing at the British Ecological Society said: 

“The British Ecological Society is committed to promoting equitable practices in international ecological science. Authors from all over the world submit to our seven journals and it is vitally important that the research we publish is reviewed and selected in the most impartial way, regardless of the authors’ backgrounds.” 

Professor Rob Freckleton, University of Sheffield and Chair of the British Ecological Society’s publications committee said: 

“On behalf of the British Ecological Society, the publications committee supported this important experiment, and from the outset we committed to being led by the results it would produce. We now have the evidence that double-anonymous peer review is an important building block towards greater equity in publishing and we are acting on it.” 

Springer Nature Group’s 2022 Sustainable Business Report shows increased support for the SDGs and action on climate

Today Springer Nature Group, the global publisher of brands such as Nature and Scientific American, launches its latest annual Sustainable Business Report, Driven by Discovery1. The report, which includes environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance data, shows the publisher’s increased support for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and action on climate in 2022. 

Highlights include:

  • 800,000 pieces of SDG-related research published since 2015; approximately 1 in 5 articles published by Springer Nature over the last seven years were SDG related.
  • Tracking how Springer Nature research is used in SDG policymaking for the first time; 1,400 SDG related policy documents cited Springer Nature research in 2022. 
  • 50% of 3,000 surveyed authors, editors, librarians and other users of its content agreed that the publisher is advancing the SDGs. 
  • Business flights remain well below pre-pandemic levels and Springer Nature  offices report sustained reductions in emissions.
  • Home working and commuting offset for the first time, to reflect established hybrid working practices2. 
  • Colleagues made a significant difference to the publisher’s sustainability activity last year.  95% of employees completed sustainable business training modules. Five new national chapters of the volunteer Green Office Network were created. A global SDG festival was held involving hundreds of colleagues who took collective steps to reduce their personal carbon emissions.

Commenting on the report, CEO Frank Vrancken Peters said: 

“It is the people at Springer Nature that make this such an inspiring workplace. As colleagues returned to our offices, we were reminded that there is just nothing like the energy that you can get from being in a room of colleagues working with a common purpose. As we work to provide ever better services to researchers, educators and healthcare practitioners, we hope to build on this positive momentum and create a ripple effect for wider society and the planet.”

Director of Sustainability and Climate Action Officer, Thea Sherer said:

“Driven by Discovery reflects the work and commitment across the organisation in delivering on our vision to accelerate solutions to the world’s urgent challenges.  We continue to make good progress as a sustainable business, including a strong focus on developing and delivering our net zero roadmap. We are also seeing colleagues making sustainable choices in the way they work and embedding climate conscious practices across our entire business.”

Read the full Sustainable Business Report 2022 on our Taking Responsibility webpage and visit theDriven by Discovery microsite for the report’s key messages.Alongside emissions related to offices and warehouses, fleet and flights.

Taylor & Francis to Pilot First Transparent Peer Review Model for a Higher Education Research Journal

The quality and integrity of peer review in Higher Education research has been put firmly in the spotlight by the European Journal of Higher Education (EJHE), published by Taylor & Francis. All articles submitted from April 2023 will, if accepted, have their reviewer reports published at the same time, as part of a one-year pilot.

The EJHE peer review process itself will remain the same, with reports on manuscripts under consideration received from two or three referees before an editorial decision is made. However, when an article is published on Taylor & Francis Online, a link will be included to an open access report containing the anonymous peer reviews from all rounds of review. Authors and reviewers will be made aware of the policy before they submit an article or agree to review.

The editors and associate editors of EJHE, Marco Seeber, Manja Klemenčič, Michele Meoli and Cristina Sin, explain in a new editorial that, at a time when there are “threats to research ethics in scientific publishing”, they expect “publishing the peer review reports will showcase that the peer review process is rigorous, high quality and fair.”

EJHE will be the first Higher Education research journal to operate a transparent peer review model. It is also the first Taylor & Francis journal to do so, and the publisher will use the results of this pilot to inform plans being developed for other peer review programs.

Katrina Hulme Cross, Portfolio Manager for Taylor & Francis Higher Education journals said, “Taylor & Francis is very supportive of innovative publishing models, in fact all our F1000 platforms already operate transparent peer review. So, we were very keen to work with the EJHE editors to develop their idea for this trial, which has required a fair amount of planning and technology development. We now look forward to seeing what impact it has on improving the experience for authors, reviewers and readers.”

The EJHE editors expect some researchers will be more willing to peer review for a journal with a transparent approach, although they acknowledge others may be hesitant. They also anticipate that, while some authors may be more reluctant to submit to the journal, others will appreciate the benefits of demonstrating that their work has gone through a rigorous peer review process before publication. The editors therefore plan to monitor closely the effect of transparent peer review on submissions and reviews and to canvass input from the academic community before any decisions are made on whether to continue beyond the pilot.

EJHE is published by Taylor & Francis under the Routledge imprint, in partnership with the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers.

ChronosHub submission interface helps publishers provide better author experience

ChronosHub, the leading open-access management platform, is excited to announce the launch of its new submission user interface (UI) for publishers. The upgraded interface collects metadata via AI extraction from manuscripts, and verifies, corrects, and enriches the data, thereby solving issues upstream and avoiding unnecessary manual work for publishers later in the process. For authors, the experience is quick, easy, and helpful by including guidance for funder policy compliance, agreement eligibility during submission, and APC quotation.

De-coupling submissions from peer review

Publisher customers subscribing to ChronosHub can opt-in to use the platform for their authors’ manuscript submissions. This will provide publishers with better end-to-end tracking opportunities as well as an understanding of the entire author experience and journey. It will not influence the peer review process. ChronosHub will take the manuscript, including key metadata, and transfer this to the publisher’s peer review system via integrations.

“Data quality is more important than ever. We focus on capturing data early on, so our AI can correct and enrich it as much as possible to avoid errors later on, thereby ensuring authors the best possible experience”, says Founder & Co-CEO, Christian Grubak.

AI-driven metadata extraction and enrichment

Publishers can forget about a system where authors need to enter metadata manually. On the new ChronosHub submissions interface, authors upload their manuscripts, and our AI extracts metadata, such as the title and abstract, and all authors’ names, email addresses, ORCIDs, and institutional affiliations. The platform automatically matches the data against known identifiers like Ringgold, ROR, ISNI, Grid, ORCID, FundRef, and OpenAlex and enriches it.

All that is left for authors to do is to confirm the details, and they’re set. And for publishers, this means more accurate data and less manual correction post-submission.

Existing features of the ChronosHub platform are included in the new interface, making it possible for authors to check funder policy compliance, agreement eligibility, and, thereby, transparent APC pricing during the submission.

Want to see what it looks like and how it works?

If you’re a publisher and are interested in seeing what the new ChronosHub submission interface looks like and how it eliminates manual work for everyone— and in learning how it can be set up, please sign up for our event on Wednesday, May 10 at 10am EST/4pm CEST.

Romy Beard, Head of Publisher Relations, will give you a quick overview and Christian Grubak, founder & co-CEO, will talk about the technical implementation.

Sign up here.

Springer Nature and EMBO cooperate to publish the EMBO Press suite of journals  

New partnership reflects shared commitment to Open Access and Open Science 

EMBO Press has chosen Springer Nature to be their new publishing partner from 1 January 2024. Authors who publish in EMBO Press journals will benefit from the global reach of Springer Nature’s leading journals. In addition, authors will have the option to transfer manuscripts between journals in the EMBO Press and Springer Nature portfolios. 

This announcement follows EMBO Press’ recent decision that to advance global discoverability, transparency and availability of published research outcomes all papers will be published with full gold Open Access (OA) from 2024, and curated source data will be posted with fully reproducible methods. 

This reflects Springer Nature’s own long-held commitment to and experience in advancing Open Access, its experience in developing innovative new routes to OA via transformative agreements and transformative journals, as well as its wider commitment to making all elements of research open, including data, code andprotocols. 

The journals, The EMBO Journal, EMBO Reports, EMBO Molecular Medicine, and Molecular Systems Biology,which publish high-value articles with important advances in all areas of biology and biomedical sciences from around the globe, join Springer Nature’s leading portfolio of around 600 fully OA journals, including Nature Communications, and over 1,700 hybrid journals which include Nature and the Nature research titles.

Harsh Jegadeesan, Chief Publishing Officer, Springer Nature, said: 

“I am delighted to welcome EMBO Press to Springer Nature and look forward to working together to advance equitable and market-leading Open Science and Open Access policies. This common goal, along with our shared focus on improving the research publishing experience, will accelerate our efforts to help address the world’s urgent challenges.”

Fiona Watt, EMBO Director, commented: 

“We are proud of our journals and the services we offer authors and readers. We review our publishing partnerships on a regular basis. Out of the many expressions of interest that we received last year from both non-profit and for-profit publishers we chose Springer Nature because it best meets our needs at a time when science publishing is in considerable flux. EMBO Press has been consistently innovative since its inception, and we have chosen a publisher that will not only help us grow but also facilitate widespread adoption of the Open Science activities that we have piloted successfully.”

Bernd Pulverer, Head of Scientific Publishing at EMBO, commented:

“We support selective quality-focussed publishing and Open Science equally in order to develop synergistic approaches for the efficient dissemination of reproducible science. Through our partnership with Springer Nature we can expand our approach of one review/one revision publishing with consultative transfers to and from a larger network of journals. Full Open Access benefits readers everywhere, while we will ensure that equitable financial models also preserve access to all authors of quality research.”

Alison Labbate, Vice President of Society & Partner Management at Springer Nature, added: 

“This new partnership with EMBO Press reflects our strong commitment to partnering with scientific societies and institutions—to not only meet researchers’ needs but also to advocate for global research equity and inclusion. Springer Nature is committed to the same ideals as EMBO Press; we believe we can reach our goals sooner if we collaborate on policies, resources, and product development. We are looking forward to the synergies and new opportunities this partnership affords our community.”

 A report published last year showed that authors who publish in a Springer Nature fully OA journal benefit from:

  • More people seeing and downloading their work – articles achieve on average 7,000+ downloads per article, which can be up to 5x more than articles published in another publisher’s fully OA journals;
  • More people reading and using their work – an average of 7.39 citations per article, the highest of all fully OA journals across OA publishers.

Springer Nature’s Research Integrity Director appointed to UK Committee on Research Integrity

Highly experienced integrity specialist, and Springer Nature’s Research Integrity Director – Chris Graf – becomes the latest appointee to the UK Committee on Research Integrity.

Drawing on his extensive experience delivering on transparency, open research and publishing ethics, Graf will lend his knowledge to collaborate on ways in which to support, promote and align around research integrity across research and research publishing. This will include looking at areas such as the need for an evidence based approach to integrity, and the exploration of new directions and opportunities following the launch of the committee’s  2023 to 2025 strategic plan.

Commenting on the appointment, Graf said:

“Research plays a central role in all of our day -to-day lives and as such ensuring the validity of that research has an important impact on everything from understanding climate change to developing reliable vaccines. The committee does a fantastic job of bringing together stakeholders across academia, research, funders and the corporate sector, to work together and take account of the numerous changes influencing research. By working together and combining unique knowledge sets, the committee plays an integral role in driving forward positive change in research integrity and publication best practice. I am delighted to have been appointed to the committee to have the opportunity to support, and be a part of, this vital work.”

Co-chair of the committee, Rachael Gooberman-Hill further commented:

“I am really looking forward to working with Chris. The committee and its work will benefit enormously from his knowledge and enthusiasm for high integrity in research.”  

More on the committee and the announcement can be read here. More on the work of Springer Nature’s Research Integrity Group can be found here.

Oxford University Press secures first transformative agreement in South Africa

New read and publish contract with the South African National Library and Information Consortium will provide the regional academic community with greater opportunity to publish open access

Oxford University Press (OUP) and non-profit organization the South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLIC) have reached a three-year nationwide read and publish agreement. Coming into immediate effect, the agreement will support researchers at SANLIC’s member institutions with publishing their work open access and provide those affiliated with complete access to OUP’s high-quality journals collection.

The agreement with SANLIC is OUP’s first read and publish agreement in Africa and the 35th globally. This reflects the organization’s continued drive to increase open access publishing, in line with its mission to further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Speaking about the agreement, Alastair Lewis, Sales Director at Oxford University Press, said: “I am delighted to announce our new transformative agreement with SANLIC and look forward to seeing its members and the research community benefit. As the largest university press publisher of open access research, we believe that read and publish agreements play a key role in supporting a sustainable transition to open access.”

“Oxford University Press is an important publishing venue for our researchers and this agreement enables them to publish fully open access in journals where they previously could generally not afford to do so. This is a most significant advance on prior agreements which were limited to read access to these information resources only,” said Ellen Tise, Chairperson of the SANLiC Board of Directors. “This agreement enables our member institutions to repurpose subscription expenditure to finance open access publishing and to significantly enhance the research and learning capabilities of South African institutions.”

The agreement comes after a number of new global read and publish agreements with major contracts recently signed with the Austrian Academic Library Consortium (Kooperation E-Medien Österreich; KEMÖ) and the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries (CSAL). Read more about OUP’s read and publish offering and agreements here: https://academic.oup.com/pages/open-research/read-and-publish-agreements

Karger Publishers Acts as Co-Sponsor and Co-Organizer of the 2023 Global Science Film Festival in Basel

Staying true to its goal of making science accessible to the wider public through easy-to-understand formats, Karger Publishers is exploring a new platform to connect and advance health sciences by organizing the Basel edition of the annual Global Science Film Festival.

The Swiss Science Film Academy, led by Samer Angelone, will be hosting the Global Science Film Festival (GSFF), which is dedicated to science communication through film, from March 31 – April 2, 2023. Since its inception in Zurich in 2017, the festival has expanded its scope to include feature-length films, short films, and scientist-as-filmmakers-short films shown from Bangalore to Basel. In fact, this year marks the first time it will be streamed to several global locations simultaneously. Karger Publishers is co-sponsoring the event while also acting as a first-time organizer for the Basel version.

“Translating science through films is knowledge transfer to a wider audience at its finest,” says Gabriella Karger, Chairwoman & Publisher at Karger Publishers, who will also act as a jury member at the festival. “We are delighted to bring science and society closer together by participating in this worldwide festival right on our doorstep in Basel.”

Physical onsite screenings will take place in Basel, Zurich, and Lugano, with selected accompanying online versions streamed to Shanghai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Osaka. The Karger-sponsored Global Science Film Festival in Basel will take place at the cinema Pathé Küchlin on Friday, March 31, 2023.

After each showing of the feature-length films, an expert panel discussion will take place. At the end of the festival, a jury will evaluate the films and will award prizes in the following categories: 

•    Grand Prix, best full-length film 2023
•    Best director, full-length film 2023
•    Best short film 2023
•    Best scientist-as-filmmakers 2023

A detailed program of the entire festival including ticketing, screening and streaming information, can be viewed here.

EDP – National Open Access Agreement in France

We are pleased to welcome three institutions to the National Open Access Agreement in France (Accord national pour l’accès ouvert en France) from 2023. The new members are Université d’Artois, Université de Rouen and Université Jean Monnet Saint-Étienne. Corresponding authors from these institutions and, indeed, all member institutions, may publish their work open access, free of charge in 31 participating journals. There are no publication fees or article processing charges (APCs).

Participating journals include newcomers, the Journal of ExtraCorporeal Technology and Journal of the European Optical Society-Rapid Publications. Astronomy & Astrophysics is also included as are the other Subscribe to Open (S2O) journals which are joined by Radioprotection from 2023. More established journals are also present such as EPJ Applied Physics, the Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate and Parasite. Aquatic Living Resources is now a “diamond” open access journal and, therefore, no longer included.

The inclusion of these universities brings the total number of participating institutions to 70. Members represent the majority of French universities with a science focus, most national research organisations and a number of notable organisations such as the CNRS, CEA and Inserm. The agreement remains open to new members.

The National Open Access Agreement in France is a “read and publish” agreement which was established in January 2017 for five years. In 2022, we announced that it had been extended for a further five years. EDP Sciences is the publisher for the agreement and articles published under the agreement contribute to the growing proportion of its open access content.

If you are a corresponding author and considering submitting your article to a journal published by EDP Sciences, remember to check if your institution and intended journal are part of the agreement. We look forward to welcoming corresponding authors from the Université d’Artois, Université de Rouen and Université Jean Monnet Saint-Étienne and invite all authors to find out more here.

67 Bricks named ‘Finalists’ for two British Data Awards

67 Bricks has been shortlisted twice in this year’s British Data Awards, in the categories ‘Best Place to Work in Data’ and ‘‘BI Solution of the Year’ alongside their partners at The Economist Intelligence Unit for their work creating Viewpoint. 

The British Data Awards is an annual quest to discover and celebrate data success stories. Organisations taking part this year range from FTSE 100 heavyweights, public sector pioneers, technology unicorns, fast-growing scale-ups, essential Not-For-Profits, and everything in between. A record 226 entries were received this year which means that the competition to be named a Finalist proved to be particularly tough. 

Jason Johnson, Co-Founder of Predatech and British Data Awards judge said: “Judging the British Data Awards this year wasn’t easy given the high standard of entries. All our Finalists should be incredibly proud of their data success stories and for helping to showcase the best that the world of data has to offer. I look forward to celebrating your achievements in May.”

Jennifer Schivas, MD of 67 Bricks said: “It is always a fantastic honour to be recognised alongside other industry leaders for our work, and we are especially proud this year to have done this with our partners The Economist Intelligence Unit. Our work on Viewpoint has been a real highlight of the last few years, and we’re excited to see what we can achieve together next.”

Finalists will be celebrated, and Winners announced, at an awards ceremony taking place in London on the 11th of May.

Bibliosan and Taylor & Francis Agree New Read & Publish Partnership

Bibliosan, the Italian network of biomedical research libraries, and Taylor & Francis have announced a new three-year open access agreement which will significantly extend the reach and impact of research at the 70 participating institutions.

Under the read & publish agreement, articles accepted by a Taylor & Francis Open Select (hybrid) journal will be eligible for open access publication if they have a corresponding author based at one of the Bibliosan institutions.

Researchers will also have read-access to hundreds of Taylor & Francis biology, medicine, and pharmaceutical journals. In addition, the partners are planning to run training webinars for researchers on the benefits of publishing open access, with guidance on how to do so through the agreement.

Dr Moreno Curti, National Coordinator for the Bibliosan Consortium, explained: “The agreement Bibliosan and Taylor & Francis are undertaking is of the upmost importance towards making the results of publicly funded research available; promoting all scientific production of all researchers from Bibliosan institutions nationwide by publishing their investigations, experimentation and analyses in open access journals.”

Carolyn Kirby, Vice President Commercial Lead for the EMEA region at Taylor & Francis, added: “The cutting-edge research of Bibliosan institutions is making a positive difference to health outcomes and to all our lives. We’re therefore delighted that our first open access agreement in Italy will enable this vital work to reach even more of the people who can benefit from it.”

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