Software and Editorial Board Ready, PeerJ Announces Call for Papers

PeerJ, a new multidisciplinary open access journal focused on the biological and medical sciences, today announced its first formal call for papers. Submissions will be accepted beginning December 3, 2012.

When the journal’s launch was announced in June, company co-founders Jason Hoyt, formerly the chief scientist and vice president for research and development at research software provider Mendeley, and Peter Binfield, formerly the publisher of the Public Library of Science (PLoS), told LJ that they were anticipating a “wholesale move” to open access in academic publishing,

“When I decided to leave Mendeley to start something new, I said to myself that everyone seems to be waiting around for either the government or publishers to drop costs, so why not just do it and see what happens?” Hoyt said in June. “The world shouldn’t have to wait any longer than is necessary.”

During the intervening months, PeerJ created an online submission and peer review system for papers. Binfield and Hoyt also formed an editorial board of 700 academics and an advisory board of 20 more, including five Nobel Laureates. This month, the advisory board has been testing the submission and peer review software, and has concluded that the system is ready to go. “We look forward to publishing our first articles in early 2013 and to continuing our vision for the future of scientific publishing,” Hoyt said in a release.

Rather than require authors to pay article-processing charges, PeerJ will offer authors a three-tiered, lifetime membership plan. At the “basic” level, authors will pay $99 for lifetime rights to publish one article per year with no additional fees. For a one-time fee of $169, the “enhanced” level offers the opportunity to publish two papers per year, and for $259, the “Investigator” level allows the publishing of unlimited papers each year. Each author on each paper must obtain a membership.