Discussion: The future of BEC

Join the discussion and contribute to a coauthored BEC editorial: BEC is the future.

The lockdown phase was a bad timing for starting BEC, since it separated us by preventing real life meetings from happening. Bioblast 2022 is a re-start: We discuss the future of BEC.
In advance, write to us and define the text to be posted in this discussion page under your name. Consider this as the initiation of a jointly published BEC editorial.

A discussion on publishing

Gnaiger Erich 2022-06-16

Academic institutions propagate the publication business by imprisoning academic careers into the impact factor lock-up. Do we need a change? How can we change? — Never alone, only by raising awareness collectively. Join DORA.

‘Open Access’ at a publication charge of $ 4620? Does the publication charge make a good journal? The paywall business model would collapse, when scientists refuse to do the journalism jobs in the financial interest of paywall journals.

Beyond Gold Open Access - how can it be sustained?
1. Definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access#Gold_OA
2. BEC aims at 'Daimond Open Access' (Marcus F Oliveira) without article processing charge — free for authors and readers.
3. This is presently financed by Oroboros Instruments as a service to science.
4. This model may be sustained by defining an upper limit of processed manuscripts per year, in line with a strategy beyond counting papers [1]. With increasing numbers of submissions, the editors have to take decisions on accepting manuscripts for peer-review. Pre-publication peer review of MitoFit Preprints may play an increasing role in selecting preprints for BEC peer-review.
Editors of topical series
1. The number of manuscripts per year may be extended, if volunteering editors take responsibility of guiding the publication of topical series.
2. Series may be linked to a specific event with a defined timeline.
3. Series may be linked to a specific topic with an open-end timeline.

Gnaiger E (2021) Beyond counting papers – a mission and vision for scientific publication. https://doi.org/10.26124/bec:2021-0005 - Gnaiger_2021_Bioenerg_Commun