FEBS Publications Committee Report 2013

In 2013 there were two Publications Committee Meetings: one in May (Cambridge) and one in July (St. Petersburg).

The Chairman of the Committee attended the business meetings with (Cambridge in March) and (Oxford in April); participated in the Editorial Board meetings of FEBS Letters (Debrecen in May) and FEBS Journal (Heidelberg in October); and was invited to join the Public Affairs Committee of “The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers” (ALPSP).

The Committee decided that the fee for immediate would be the following from 2014: it stays at 3000 USD at FEBS Journal, and changes to 2200 USD in FEBS Letters and to 2700 USD in Molecular Oncology. (The Open Access publication fee for FEBS Open Bio is 1200 EUR.)

The Committee appointed several new members to the editorial boards of the four FEBS journals.

The Chairman of the Publications Committee, the chief editors of our journals and the journals themselves became signatories of DORA (The San Francisco “Declaration on Assessment “, DORA) which was made public on May 17 2013.

The By-Laws of the Publications committee was modified effective by September 4, 2013. The new version of the By-Laws regulates clearly how elected/voting members of the Committee make decisions.

The Publications Committee decided, after the limitation of the annual Prize money by FEBS Finance Committee to 5K for each Prize each year, that from the year 2015:

- FEBS Letters Prize will be awarded every second year without age limitation, selecting the best paper and keeping the value of the prize money at 10K EUR;

- FEBS Journal Prize will be awarded annually for young investigators without changing the established selection criteria but lowering the prize money significantly (very likely to 1000 EUR). The remaining amount from the 5K/year will be used by the Journal to promote itself at various conferences from which original publications and reviews are expected.

The FEBS Journal

FEBS Journal is a major forum in molecular life sciences. The of the journal rose from 3.79 to 4.25 in 2013, its highest ever recorded value. The number of manuscripts accepted in 2013 (518) rose by 38% as a result of the growing number of submissions. Five Special Issues, a record number, were published during the year. Seven new members were appointed to the editorial board.

The outstanding service of Richard Perham at FEBS Journal for 15 years came to an end in December. Seamus Martin was appointed for 5 years to the position of chairman of the editorial board of FEBS Journal starting on January 1st, 2014.

FEBS Letters

FEBS Letters is a world‐renowned journal for rapid publication of short reports describing novel and specific effects with a biologically or biochemically significant function. Its 2012 Impact Factor is 3.582. In 2013 it published 583 articles and 3 special issues. Two new members were appointed to the editorial board. The chief editor of the journal is Felix Wieland.

Molecular Oncology

Molecular Oncology highlights new discoveries, approaches, as well as technical developments, in basic, clinical and discovery-driven translational research. It publishes research articles, reviews thematic issues science policy articles; altogether 100 articles were published in 2013. The IF of the journal rose to 6.701, which led to a sharp increase of submissions. Hard copies of the journal were distributed at large cancer conferences. Julio Celis is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, engaging the advice of 71 editors.

FEBS Open Bio

FEBS Open Bio is an online-only Open Access journal for the rapid publication of research articles in molecular and cellular life sciences in both health and disease. It published 78 articles in 2013 compared to 52 in 2012. It is expected that the first impact factor for the journal will appear in 2015. The executive editor of the journal is Mary Purton, who works with 25 editors.