50Ȼ is committed to advancing discovery by publishing robust and insightful research, supporting the development of new areas of knowledge, and making ideas and knowledge accessible around the world. In taking responsibility for accepting and publishing an author’s research our primary duty is to make it as widely discoverable, accessible, understandable, usable, reusable and shareable as possible.
Our publishing and editorial policies have been developed in consultation with the research communities that we serve, including authors and librarians, and they are rooted in our belief that scholarly communication is aided by greater transparency of the processes by which we operate. These policies underpin our respect for academic independence; our commitment to ensuring authors have a real choice in the type and mode of publication for their research; an understanding that this research needs to be published as quickly as possible whilst commanding the highest level of trust; our responsibility in safeguarding the scientific accuracy of the published record; and, via our connections with the communities we serve, our understanding of the changing needs of the academic community.
The policies and principles set out here apply to all 50Ȼ-owned journals. The journals we publish on behalf of learned societies are subject to their publishing and editorial policies however we encourage our society partners to adopt these policies if not in practice then in principle.
50Ȼ is also proud to work with and support the following organizations and initiatives:
COPE: All 50Ȼ journals are members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
DORA: Nature Research and BMC are signatories of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, a community-effort initiated by the American Society for Cell Biology to assess research on its own merits rather than using journal-based metrics as proxy measures.
TOP guidelines: 50Ȼ is a signatory to the Transparency and Openness Promotion guidelines, a community-driven effort focusing on eight modular standards (including data, code, methods and reagents) with three levels of stringency.
“New frontiers of peer review” (PEERE) consortium: 50Ȼ is a signatory of the protocol regulating the sharing of data on peer review within PEERE, which is an EU-funded initiative aiming to improve the efficiency, transparency and accountability of peer review by promoting multi-disciplinary analysis and stimulating evidence-based experiments and reforms.
