Nature Publishing Group and Frontiers Form Alliance to Further Open Science

LONDON, February 27, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Emerging publisher Frontiers is joining Nature Publishing Group (NPG) in a strategic alliance to advance the global open science movement. NPG, publisher of Nature, today announces a majority investment in the Swiss-based open access (OA) publisher Frontiers.

NPG and Frontiers will work together to empower researchers to change the way science is communicated, through open access publication and open science tools. Frontiers, led by CEO and neuroscientist Kamila Markram, will continue to operate with its own platform, brands, and policies.

Founded by scientists from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2007, Frontiers is one of the fastest growing open access publishers, more than doubling articles published year on year. Frontiers now has a portfolio of open access journals in 14 fields of science and medicine, and published over 5,000 OA articles in 2012.

Working with NPG, the journal series "Frontiers in" will significantly expand in 2013-2014. Currently, sixty-three journals published by NPG offer open access options or are open access and NPG published over 2000 open access articles in 2012. Bilateral links between nature.com and frontiersin.org will ensure that open access papers are visible on both sites.

Frontiers and NPG will also be working together on innovations in open science tools, networking, and publication processes.

Frontiers is based at EPFL in Switzerland, and works out of Innovation Square, a technology park supporting science start-ups, and hosting R&D divisions of large companies such as Logitech & Nestlé.

Quotes from key spokespeople

"Combining NPG's established publishing expertise with Frontiers' innovative solutions for researchers opens up a wealth of opportunities for transforming the landscape of science communication. Frontiers is not only aiming to innovate in open access, but also to provide a more transparent and constructive peer review process, and offer an ecosystem of tools for scientists to build their academic standing." - Dr Kamila Markram, CEO of Frontiers.

"Frontiers is innovating in many ways that are of interest to us and to the scientific community," said Dr Philip Campbell Editor-in-Chief, Nature. "Referees and handling editors are named on published papers, which is very unusual in the life sciences community. Nature has experimented with open peer review in the past, and we continue to be interested in researchers' attitudes. Frontiers also encourages non-peer reviewed open access commentary, empowering the academic community to openly discuss some of the grand challenges of science with a wide audience."

"In Frontiers, we have a partner who shares our desire to further research through increasingly open communication amongst scientists. Our alliance will accelerate both NPG and Frontiers' experiments, improvements and innovations. We can achieve more together, and more quickly, than either publisher could working alone."  - Steven Inchcoombe, Managing Director, Nature Publishing Group.

About Frontiers

Frontiers is a community-oriented open access scholarly publisher and social networking platform for researchers. Founded in 2007 by scientists in Switzerland, its industry leading platform http://www.frontiersin.org together with a growing range of exciting and innovative open science tools, empowers all academic research communities to steer the evolution of science communication into the 21^st century.

Frontiers has become one of the fastest-growing scholarly publishers, with community-driven journals publishing around 500 high-quality, peer-reviewed articles every month, and with doubling publication rates every year. Frontiers editorial boards are served by over 25,000 world-renowned scientists.

About Nature Publishing Group

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific information online and in print and part of Macmillan Science and Education.

NPG is dedicated to serving the scientific community and the wider scientifically interested general public. NPG is a global company with principal offices in London, New York and Tokyo, and 22 offices in cities worldwide. For more information, please go to http://www.nature.com.

About Macmillan Science and Education

Macmillan Science and Education is a global division of the family owned Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. Recently established, the division is home to the Macmillan businesses which empower learning and discovery through the provision of high quality content and services to scientists, educationalists, students and academics around the world.  Operating in over 70 countries with some 5000 employees, the division consists of Nature Publishing Group (NPG), Palgrave Macmillan, Macmillan Education, Macmillan Higher Education, Digital Science, Digital Education and Macmillan New Ventures. For more information, please see http://www.macmillan.com

Contact: Grace Baynes
Head of Corporate Communications, Nature Publishing Group
T: +44-(0)20-7014-4063
g.baynes@nature.com

Gozde Zorlu
Associate Communications Officer, Frontiers
T: +41-(0)21-693-92-03
gozde.zorlu@frontiersin.org