2016 - All Press Releases

London | New York, 10 March 2016

Five new titles will join the Nature family of journals in January 2017: Nature Astronomy, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Ecology & Evolution, Nature Human Behaviour and Nature Reviews Chemistry.

These new journals expand the Nature portfolio to serve rapidly growing scientific communities, particularly in multidisciplinary research and research aimed at solving our most pressing societal challenges. These journals are being launched in response to multiple requests from researchers for us to provide a high impact community centric journal in each of these fields.

• Nature Astronomy, the latest addition to the Nature portfolio in the physical sciences, will be a multidisciplinary journal for the field, representing and fostering closer interaction between all of the key astronomy-relevant disciplines. Nature Astronomy will publish the most significant research, review and comment at the cutting edge of astronomy, astrophysics and planetary science.
• Nature Biomedical Engineering will appeal to bench scientists, clinicians and engineers interested in understanding or combatting disease. Straddling the life sciences, the physical sciences and engineering, the journal will cover materials, therapies and devices for understanding, diagnosing or improving human health across clinical settings and healthcare contexts.
• Nature Ecology and Evolution will bring together scientists and practitioners interested in all aspects of life's diversity — past, present and future. The journal will cover the fundamental science of evolution and ecology, from molecules through to ecosystems, as well as the applications to fields as diverse as conservation, behaviour and medicine.
• Nature Human Behaviour will have both social and natural science at its very core, and provide a multidisciplinary home for researchers who want a high-profile journal to showcase their work and provide visibility to a wide readership. The journal will feature topics that span the behavioural sciences, including perception, memory and learning, reward and decision-making, emotion, language and communication, social cognition and behaviour, and belief systems and culture. Nature Human Behaviour also aims to strengthen the reach and impact of behavioural research in directly addressing our most pressing societal challenges and builds upon the cross-disciplinary approach established by Nature Climate Change and Nature Energy.
• Nature Reviews Chemistry, the second physical sciences title in the Nature Reviews portfolio, will build on the success of Nature Chemistry and emulate the principles of authoritative, high-quality content and exceptional editorial standards that are the hallmark of the Nature Reviews titles. The journal will publish reviews, perspectives, and research highlights and comments in topics covering the breadth of pure and applied chemistry, and provide insights appropriate for specialists and for those seeking an introduction to a new field.

In addition to original research, Nature Astronomy, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Ecology & Evolution, and Nature Human Behaviour will publish commentaries, review articles, News and Views, and correspondence covering the many issues of interest to their respective communities. All five journals will be open for submissions in April 2016.

Like all Nature-branded journals, the five new titles will each be run by a dedicated team of professional editors who will ensure a fair and rigorous peer-review process, high standards of copy-editing and production, swift publication and editorial independence.

These five new online-only subscription titles join the wider portfolio of 39 Nature-branded journals on nature.com, which includes Nature Communications, the highest ranked Open Access multidisciplinary journal. Last year, over 60% of articles published on nature.com were made freely available via open access.

Quotes:

“Nature has a long and rich history in serving the ecology and evolution, and astronomy communities,” said James Butcher, Publishing Director, Nature journals. "The very first article in Nature in 1869 was Thomas Henry Huxley’s discussion of the relationship between humanity and nature, and in 1995 Nature published the paper on the first discovery of a planet orbiting a main sequence star outside our Solar System. As the volume of research is growing, we believe it is the right time to launch high-impact journals to host the very best research from these communities.”

“We regularly receive requests from academics to launch journals that serve their communities,” said James Butcher, Publishing Director, Nature journals. “Biomedical engineering and human behaviour are two areas of science that are growing rapidly and that are societally important. We hope that researchers working in those fields will consider submitting their best work to the two new Nature journals." 

ENDS

For more information, contact:

Rachel Scheer
Head of Communications, USA
T: +1 (212) 451-8569
r.scheer@us.nature.com

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