Fostering International Collaborations Announcing Life Science Alliance A
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SPRING 2018 ISSUE 38 EMBO Courses & Workshops A look behind the scenes PAGES 12 – 13 New scientific journal Partnership with Chile Announcing Life Science Fostering international Alliance collaborations PAGE 3 PAGE 4 ERC Scientific Council in Heidelberg Facts & Figures “Every question begins with SUMO” Grants under discussion EMBO activities in 2017 at a glance Frauke Melchior receives FEBS | EMBO Women in Science Award PAGE 7 PAGES 10 – 11 PAGE 14 www.embo.org Table of contents EMBO news Science policy Preprint quality control Page 6 DORA relaunch: towards fair evaluation of researchers Page 7 EMBO PRESS Announcing Life Science Alliance Page 3 EMBL Photolab Marietta Schupp, © Chilean researchers now eligible for EMBO Editorial support Page 4 et another journal?” Exchanging ideas in India Page 4 SCIENCE POLICY I would not be surprised if that “Ywas a question that went through Meet the latest Installation EMBL and EMBO host the ERC Scientific your mind when reading the announce- Grantees Page 5 ment of our newest journal, Life Science Council Page 7 Alliance (p3). It is a question we asked ourselves more than once when we first considered adding another publication to EMBO community the EMBO Press portfolio. We came to the conclusion that – Updates from across despite the already crowded journal market Europe Pages 15 – 16 and the development of alternative means of sharing scientific findings – there are good reasons to launch this particular Awards and publications publication. This is in fact not ‘just anoth- EMBO NEWS er journal’. Its raison d'être is to address Achievements and papers by members of some of the existing challenges in scientific Spotlight on the ASCB | EMBO publishing and the needs of the life science Meeting Pages 08 – 09 the EMBO community Page 17 community. We would like our authors to publish Looking back: 2017 at a glance their work as quickly and effortlessly as Pages 10 – 11 EMBO events possible. We would like our reviewers to be relieved of the additional reviewing burden Upcoming courses, workshops and associated with multiple submissions of Behind the scenes of EMBO events conferences Page 18 the same manuscript at different journals. Pages 12 – 13 And we would like our community to feel we are working towards sustainable ways of Open Access publishing that are not Fresh from EMBO press dominated by a small number of for-profit publishers. Some of EMBO’s latest publications at a These are our reasons for founding Life glance Page 19 Science Alliance. We are proud and excited to have Rockefeller University Press and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press as our partners, two other not-for-profit academic community publishers who share these values. EMBO NEWS I hope you agree that Life Science Frauke Melchior receives FEBS | EMBO Alliance is not simply an additional jour- nal, and encourage you to participate as Women in Science Award Page 14 authors, reviewers or advisors in order to make it a success. Maria Leptin Director, EMBO 2 EMBOencounters | Spring 2018 | [email protected] ©2018 EMBO EMBO PRESS Announcing Life Science Alliance About the journal Life Science Alliance is a new global, open-access, A new open-access, non-profit, community-driven journal peer-reviewed journal jointly published by three leading non-profit science organizations, he EMBO Press journal portfolio now General Physiology, Genes & Development and which have formed an alliance committed includes Life Science Alliance. The open- Genome Research. to rapid, fair, and transparent publication of Taccess journal is published in a partnership In addition to conceptually novel studies, papers of high value to the community across with Rockefeller University Press and Cold Spring the journal also explicitly welcomes submis- the full spectrum of the life sciences and Harbor Laboratory Press and will cover the full sion of resources, methods, as well as important biomedicine. spectrum of life science and biomedical research. confirmatory, negative or refuting data. Quality: Life Science Alliance meets Life Science Alliance is committed to the rapid, Before recommending a transfer, the editors the same high standards in its scientific fair and transparent publication of research at the alliance journal to which the manuscript assessment and editorial process as the other results. was initially submitted consult – with the authors’ journals published by the three partners. permission – with the Life Science Alliance Speed of publication: Authors can submit Reduced effort for authors editors to provide authors with a firm commit- directly to Life Science Alliance or will be "The aim of creating this new journal was to ment. For manuscripts invited for transfer to Life invited to transfer work that was deemed of reduce the time authors spend on getting their Science Alliance following peer review, commit- interest, but not suitable for the other journals papers published and to reduce the overall ment towards publication is based on the existing published by the three alliance partners. Life burden on reviewers without compromising referee reports and is accompanied by a clear set Science Alliance aims to publish every valuable scientific standards,” says Andrea Leibfried, the of minimal revision requirements for publication study of high quality submitted to any of the Executive Editor for Life Science Alliance. if neccessary. Each study is therefore reviewed by partner journals with minimal delay. Bernd Pulverer, Head of EMBO Scientific one set of reviewers only. Reduced effort for authors: Life Science Publications, adds: “The partnership will help To ensure a community-driven, academically- Alliance empowers authors to publish their us publish more high quality papers from a wide led editorial process, the Executive Editor works research with minimal delay by avoiding range of authors and subject areas. It is the first closely with four Academic Editors: Julia Cooper repetitive rounds of submission, peer-review, time that three renowned non-profit community (National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA), and revision. Manuscripts are easy to submit. publishers jointly launch a journal. We hope that Florent Ginhoux (A*STAR, Singapore), Sebastian Any format is accepted. our union will help to balance the developing Jessberger (Brain Research Institute and Trustworthy editorial process: The dominance of a small number of for-profit University of Zurich, Switzerland) and Michael academic editors of Life Science Alliance are publishers.” Overholtzer (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer leaders in their fields. Center, New York, USA). A journal driven by community needs: Life Firm commitment for manuscript transfers Science Alliance is fully open access. It publishes An aspect essential to the journal’s concept is novel research findings, resources, methods life-science-alliance.org that, in addition to direct submissions, authors For the latest updates, follow the journal on Twitter as well as important confirmatory, negative are invited to transfer their manuscripts to Life @LSAjournal or refuting data. Life Science Alliance offers Science Alliance from nine journals published by ‘scooping protection’ from the day of submission the three alliance partners: The EMBO Journal, to Life Science Alliance or, for transfers, the day EMBO Reports, Molecular Systems Biology, EMBO of submission to alliance journals. The policy Molecular Medicine, Journal of Cell Biology, also extends to the date of preprint posting of a Journal of Experimental Medicine, Journal of manuscript. ©2018 EMBO EMBOencounters | Spring 2018 | [email protected] 3 EMBO NEWS EMBO support now available for Chilean researchers Partnership with National science,” said EMBO Director Maria Leptin. “We help them to continue generating cutting-edge Commission for Scientific and are very pleased to form this partnership with knowledge and to interact with the most prestig- Technological Research in Chile CONICYT, which will enable us to encourage and ious researchers in this area.” launched facilitate stronger interactions between life scien- “Increased interaction between scientists in tists in Europe and those in Chile.” Chile and Europe will support the formation of The agreement – which took effect on 1 strong networks and collaborative activities,” n December 2017, EMBO announced a new January 2018 – is part of EMBO Global Activities adds Gerrit van Meer, President of the European cooperation partnership that will enable it aims to catalyze scientific exchange, support Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC). IChilean researchers to participate in its talented researchers, and strengthen the practice programmes and activities. of science across the globe. embo.org/about-embo/global-activities In order to strengthen scientific exchange and The President of CONICYT Council, Mario collaboration between Chile and Europe, EMBO, Hamuy, commented: “The study of the processes together with its intergovernmental funding at the molecular level has become very important body, EMBC, signed a cooperation agreement in the last decade. In this context, signing this with the National Commission for Scientific and agreement enabling Chilean researchers to access Technological Research in Chile (CONICYT). the programmes and activities offered by EMBO, “International collaboration beyond nation- such as fellowships, courses and workshops, is a al borders is a vital component of successful great opportunity for researchers in Chile. It will Fellowships, Courses & Workshops and the Young Exchanging