Moving biology direct towards a new dimension

Twenty years ago, in 2005, the world of publishing was brimming with hope, amidst extensive changes that promised to reshape the future of scientific research. The rapid expansion of the internet now afforded the possibility of moving journals from libraries to institutions and to individual groups of scientists. The growth of the European Union gave the countries in Eastern Europe the opportunity to join a more dynamic scientific scene. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) with the Overseas Talent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition project and Russia’s Megagrants were opening to rapid expansion and investment in science. These changes allowed the possibility of new procedures for disseminating scientific information, which underwent intense discussion. Was the “peer-review” system old? Was the time to modify Galileo Galiei’s (1610) logic of introduction-methods-result-discussion [1]? Was the end of the publish-or-perish rational?

In January 2006, Eugene Kooning, with a strong support of fellow scientists from North America and Europe, launched a new journal, Biology Direct [2]. With its a bold innovative vision, it focused on a selective cohort of scientists, making the publishing process less painful and leaving more space to provocative ideas, as discussed in meetings. A new community experiment was launched. As indicated by Eugene, the goal was "unapologetically ambitious: to establish a new, perhaps, better system of peer review and, in the process, bolster productive scientific debate, and provide scientists with useful guides to the literature" [2]. As all our readers know, the current status of peer review is "the worst system imaginable, except for all others" (Churchill), leaving arbitrary powers to editors and journals, with no protections against bias or abuse. At times, also becoming biased if not corrupted. Of course, such anonymous reviewers are just "us, peer scientists", distinguished members of the active and dynamic scientific community. Being both abused and abuser, Eugene changed the game. Could we bring greater transparency to this process? Time for publishing was also relevant. Modifying a manuscript or generating new experimental data would inevitably result in months of delay, as well as challenges for funding. Publication cost was another important obstacle to overcome. Eugene aimed to publish "almost anything", even papers that receive unexciting reviews, the only conditions being that different Editorial Board members agree to review (or solicit a review) and that the work qualifies as scientific (not pseudoscientific, intelligent design, artificial intelligence or creationist). Papers would be published alongside the reviews they received. So, Biology Direct entered the 21st century, giving space to mathematical modelling and phylogenetic interference: the focus was on Systems Biology, Computational Biology, and Evolutionary Biology, with a significant focus on Biochemistry, Immunity and Cancer.

Since then, the world has changed. In 1994 there were 630,600 papers published whilst in 2022 the worldwide number of publications reached 2,833,671 manuscripts. Nearly 5 times more! Here, at Springer Nature, we moved from 35,583 (in 1994) to 401,158 (in 2022) publications; and that is whilst not even being the largest publisher. One possible explanation is the fall of the prior dominance of North America/West-Europe, now expanded to the rest of Europe, China, Russia and India. Secondly, all institutions start requesting bibliometric evaluation of Institutes and individual scientists, driving a huge pressure to publish. There are also other reasons to discuss, but these are beyond the scope of the current analysis. Slowly, the enthusiasm for Eugene revolution has slightly dimmed, but not the reasons, and after 15 years, I came into play. Mid 2020, I took office.

With a partial changes in the Editorial Board Members, we increased the number of publications per year from 24 (in 2019), to just 147 (in 2024), while improving the bibliometric values. Impact factor rose from 2.1 to 5.7 (Fig. 1A), being helped by the citations generated by the review articles (median of 8 citations per manuscript) (Fig. 1B). The citations are linked to all prestigious journal in the field, with a limited number of self citations; noteworthy, in 2019 Biology Direct ranked in the 55th percentile of all journal in the same category (Biology), and gradually claimed up to the current 91st percentile. This has allowed Biology Direct to be ranked number 11th out of 109 journals in the category of "Biology" (Fig. 1C). In fact, we are not far from eLife, and just above long standing journals like BMC Biology and FASEB journal (Fig. 1E). As expected, the submissions form China dominated the journal, but a consistent number originated from North America and Europe (Fig. 1D); at present China remain by far the most frequent country of origin of all manuscript. In fact, China has become a scientific superpower, not just in superconductor or AI-driven cars, but also in biomedical science where the country is investing heavily in large facilities. This is already affecting the global research ecosystem. The latest figures indicate that circa 80% of all current submissions are from Chinese scientists. Notwithstanding this, Biology Direct bibliometric evaluations indicate a solid improvement, with over 1,000% increase in manuscript submissions in the last 5 years, with a good turnaround time for decision (Fig. 1F). This is in spite of the difficulties of finding reviewers, the new Sinocentric dominance and the growing fear of less scientific data (pseudoscientific work, intelligent design, artificial intelligence or creationism), each of which pose a threat to the original scope of Biology Direct. Indeed, the dominant field has become Cancer Biology.

Fig. 1

Bibliometrics performances of Biology Direct. (A) Impact factor between 2019 and 2023,in blue; the green chart shows the percentage ranking in the category Biology. (B) Median citation of original (blue) and review (green) articles. (C) Ranking in the category Biology, raising from quartile 2 to quartile 1 and relative ranking (from 42nd to 11th position). (D) Country of origin of published manuscripts in 2023. (E) Listing of the Ranking order in the category Biology. (F) Flow of manuscripts in 2024, indicating the percentage increment in the last 5 years - between 2019 and 2024, turnaround times in give in days, from submission to the first decision and, below, from submission to the final acceptance. Data are from Clarivate (2024), copyright, or from BioMedCentral, Springer Nature, or from Medline/PubMed

We need to remember the original revolution of Eugene; although the time is different, we need to try not to completely forget its original ideas. This implies faster way to process manuscripts and allow an interactive visibility with the scientific community. Now we are approaching 20 years of publication and it is necessary to implement new adjustment in the Editorial Board, in the major themes as well as in the procedures. We need, therefore, to bring Biology Direct into a new dimension, adapting to the new time. Areas that we would like to focus will be, as an example:

• Molecular aspects of evolution

• Artificial Intelligence applied to structural biology, microbiology, precision medicine

• Bioinformatics theory and methods for biological discovery

• Plant development and environmental interactions

• Cancer pathways and predictions

• Women in Science

To do this we are are opening a new forum of discussion between editors, publisher and readers to expand Biology Direct into new themes and in recruiting more Editorial Board Members. We call for enthusiastic authors and readers to join our discussion forum, and, possibly, also our active board. The new year will be exciting, with significant transformation!

Welcome to Biology Direct!