Exciting times ahead: a partnership with Nature Publishing Group.

Abstract

We are delighted to announce that the Primary Care Respiratory Journal (PCRJ) will be published by Nature Publishing Group (NPG) from 1st April this year. NPG have entered into a partnership agreement with the Primary Care Respiratory Society UK (PCRS-UK), the owners of the Journal, to re-launch the PCRJ under a new title brand. The rebranded PCRJ will continue as the official journal of the PCRS-UK and the International Primary Care Respiratory Group (IPCRG). PCRS-UK has worked in close collaboration with the IPCRG, as well as the editorial team, whilst negotiating the partnership agreement. This partnership with NPG means that the journal will now benefit hugely from the strengths and capabilities of a top international academic publisher. There will be a change in title, to include the words ‘respiratory medicine’. This is aimed at broadening the relevance of the journal to practitioners working in a range of international models of primary care, making it clear that we are interested in receiving contributions from clinicians and academics working within any sector that impacts on primary care management of respiratory and respiratory-related allergic diseases. The publishing partnership with NPG will be officially launched at the IPCRG conference in Athens, 21–24 May 2014. This issue of the PCRJ will therefore be the final issue of the journal in its current form, and will be the last to have a hard copy issue. The rebranded journal will be online-only and fully openaccess, with an article processing charge (APC). This new business model for the journal will ensure sustainable access to all of our published content free of charge to readers anywhere in the world. This will help ensure longevity and sustainability in an environment of constant change, where funding agencies are more and more mandating publication of research in open-access journals. The aim, of course, is to continue the progress made by the PCRJ in recent years and to develop the journal into a world leader in its field. We obtained our first Impact factor of 2.191 last year, which ranked the PCRJ as 2/17 among primary care journals and 30/50 among respiratory journals. Our internal calculations predict that our 2013 Impact factor, to be published in June 2014, will be above 2.5. NPG has the experience, expertise, worldwide reputation, global reach and infrastructure that the journal needs to develop further. The tendering, negotiating and planning process we have been through with NPG gives us every confidence that this is going to be a very successful partnership which will help to improve the quality of the end-product and increase its global reach. As such, we are very excited at the prospect of working with such an illustrious publisher. There will be a seamless transfer from the current PCRJ publishing arrangements to the new publishing arrangements with NPG. Any articles submitted to the PCRJ up to the end of March 2014 will be automatically transferred over to the new title. Articles submitted to the journal from 1st April 2014 will be subject to the APC. We fully understand that the introduction of an APC, payable on article acceptance, is a new venture for this journal. Of course, authors from HINARI-band countries will have their APC waived, and other authors who cannot afford to pay and/or do not have a source of funding, can apply for a waiver if absolutely necessary. However, we hope that the Nature brand, the PCRJ’s reputation and well-established editorial processes, and our fast turnaround for submitted papers, should be very attractive to authors who wish to submit their work. In 2013, the average time to first decision for submitted papers was 23.7 days, and the time to final decision was 30.7 days. Making the move to a new publisher is a major decision for any journal owner. Having worked very closely with the PCRS-UK we are well aware that considerable thought, expertise and negotiation has gone into this decision, which has been motivated by one core aim – ensuring that the journal continues to shape efforts to develop primary care respiratory medicine globally. It has been our pleasure to have been part of these deliberations and to work alongside a number of talented and highly committed individuals who have brought this agreement to fruition. They include: Anne Smith and Patrick White (representing the PCRS-UK); Siân Williams (representing the IPCRG); Mark Ware (an independent editorial consultant); Pooja Aggarwal and Joe Bennett (of NPG), and Richard Smith, Dermot Exciting times ahead: a partnership with Nature Publishing Group