I am happy to introduce myself as the new Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Neuroscience. At the same time, I would like to thank Marina Picciotto, the Journal's Editor-in-Chief for the past 7 years, for her incredible dedication and hard work to pass on a strong and healthy publication medium.
As a working scientist, I decided to become involved in scientific publishing early in my independent investigator career. My motivation started with an experience that all scientists have had: receiving reviews that are not constructive and do not serve the peer review process well. My editorial work has always been aimed at making the peer review process as good, fair, and transparent as possible. I see my role as collaborating closely with authors and reviewers to facilitate a productive process. My experiences as Senior Editor at eLife and Editor-in-Chief at Progress in Neurobiology have transformed my vision for scientific publishing in recent years, and I am excited to bring some of these editorial experiences back to JNeurosci, where my editorial career began. I am particularly excited to work closely with our wonderful Board of Senior and Reviewing Editors—together, we hope to write a progressive new chapter in the Journal's long and successful history.
Progressive peer review initiative
Scientific publishing has dramatically changed in recent years; and, as a result, there have been a number of excitingand very useful improvements to the traditional peer review process. We will implement some of these in JNeurosci in early 2023. We think that the evaluation of scientific articles of any type is an important part of the scientific publishing process to assure the highest quality of rigor in the scientific process, appropriate scholarship, and effective scientific communication. We will pursue a progressive version of peer review for evaluation of the Journal's content. We will embark on an interactive and transparent process that is focused on supporting authors to publish articles of the highest standards. We will embrace open peer review and will publish the editorial decision letter, reviews (in anonymized form), and the authors' rebuttal along with the article. We will also adopt collaborative review and reserve the right to discuss particularly conflicting reviews with our reviewers, as necessary, so that a clear and unified statement can be sent to authors. We hope that this approach will promote a transparent and productive publication process that is centered on our authors.
Engagement of our community
As a society journal, we hope to work closely and constructively with our community of authors, reviewers, and fellow scientists. And there will be many ways to become involved. We are particularly interested in bringing early career investigators (ECIs) into the scientific publishing process as authors, reviewers, or members of a future ECI editorial board that will complement our present editorial team. I will update you in future editorials about this exciting new initiative.
If you are interested in submitting an article to JNeurosci, but you are not quite sure whether it is the right fit, please contact us to discuss—we will be happy to provide feedback! If you are interested in writing a conceptual piece like a Review or Viewpoint, please send us an outline (https://www.jneurosci.org/content/information-authors#Feature_articles), and we will provide guidance on the project. And of course, we are counting on your support in evaluating manuscripts and assure that the standards and quality of JNeurosci remain outstanding. A journal lives from the support of the research community, and we are counting on you!
I wish you all the best for a wonderful year full of scientific discovery!
In science,
Sabine