Stockholm, Sweden — April 3, 2008 — The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) announces further advances in neuroscience publishing, with wide adoption of the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium (NPRC) initiative. The NPRC is an alliance of neuroscience journals that have agreed to accept manuscript reviews from other members of the Consortium to accelerate publication of research articles. Currently, 27 journals have joined the NPRC for a one-year trial period that ends December 31, 2008.
The NPRC was created to reduce the inefficiency that arises when an author submits a manuscript to a journal after the same manuscript has been reviewed and rejected by another journal. In many cases, publication of good manuscripts —which may have been rejected solely because of space or scope limitations— is delayed as editors from each journal attempt to find reviewers, send the reviews, and wait for the reviews to be returned. Often the same reviewer is asked to review the same manuscript multiple times. The NPRC streamlines this process by allowing reviews solicited by one journal to be forwarded and re-used by other member journals. However, ultimate control of manuscript submission remains in the hands of authors as reviews are forwarded only when the author requests this service.
This revolutionary review-forwarding system was proposed by scientists, editors, and publishers who participated at the June 2007 PubMed Plus conference in St. Louis, U.S.A organized by the Society for Neuroscience. The Task Force for Neuroscience Publishing, currently co-chaired by John Maunsell and Clifford Saper, agreed on standards that would be acceptable to all parties —authors, editors, reviewers, and publishers. The NPRC started with seven member journals and has seen a steep increase in participation. The service is expected to benefit the entire Neuroscience community and could serve as an example to other disciplines.
The INCF has implemented the Task Force’s recommendations by building and hosting the consortium’s website (http://nprc.incf.org) and providing administrative assistance and information to all journals and users. INCF director Jan Bjaalie was among the dozen or so participants in the Task Force.
"The INCF is excited about the increased participation of leading journals,” Bjaalie said. “The initiative enables a new type of collaboration in the field of scientific publishing, offering clear benefits to authors and journals. The INCF looks forward to entering a dialogue with the community about how to facilitate further progress in this area."
About the INCF
The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF, www.incf.org) coordinates and fosters international activities for discovery and innovation in neuroscience and related fields. Established in 2005 through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Global Science Forum, the INCF catalyzes global knowledge flow and scientific interaction by developing, maintaining and evaluating worldwide programs, standards, guidelines and infrastructures in neuroinformatics to further our understanding of the human brain and its diseases. With its Secretariat at the Karolinska Institutet and Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, the INCF achieves its international outreach through its national nodes in 14 current member countries across the globe.