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Branding in Scientific Publishing

Submitted by redoxoma on Fri, 12/14/2018 - 21:15
Branding in Scientific Publishing

The Radical-Free Corner by Alicia Kowaltowski and Ignacio Amigo

A recent Facebook post by a colleague celebrated his publication in the journal Nature Scientific Reports. The publication was important and should be celebrated, except for the small detail that there is, in reality, no journal called Nature Scientific Reports, but instead a journal named Scientific Reports. While this journal is published by Nature Publishing Group - the same company responsible for highly selective titles such as Nature and Nature Medicine - it has a completely different acceptance policy, publishing scientifically valid and technically sound papers, irrespective of impact.

Adding “Nature” to the journal name may seem like an innocent mistake, but we can’t help but notice that many scientists are eager to have their names associated with prestigious periodical brand-names. The practice isn't limited to the Nature brand. For example, Cell Press publishes many Cell-titled journals which carry at least part of the prestige of the trendy high-impact journal Cell, but also produces a handful of journals without “Cell” in their name, including Neuron and Immunity. Scientists are now referring to publications in “Cell journal Neuron”, “Cell Immunity” or similar variations. This constitutes, in our view, an attempt to gain visibility for journals by associating them to prominent scientific brand names.

Scientific journal branding has grown in many ways over the last few years. Publishers of prestigious journals have launched numerous new publication venues using the visibility gained by their flagship journal names. Science Publishing Group, for example, now hosts 13 journals with “Science” as the first name in the title, in addition to the traditional and high-impact Science journal. Eight journals are published under the “Cell” brand name, 14 journals currently contain “The Lancet” in their title (including the highly influential medical journal The Lancet), and an impressive 57 journals have titles that begin with the word “Nature”.

This strategy seems to have worked, as many of these brand name journals are growing very rapidly. For example, Cell Reports was launched in 2012 and published 1040 scientific papers in 2017, an average of 2.8 papers a day. Nature Communications has gone from publishing 156 papers in 2010 to 4288 in 2017, a 2748% increase in seven years, and a current average of 11.7 papers per day. For comparison, Public Library of Science journals such as PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine, which have similar impact factors and the same open access publishing strategy, publish more modest numbers of 200-300 papers per year.

The growth in publications is not a result of competitive pricing; Cell Reports charges US$ 5000 per paper, while publishing in Nature Communications costs US$ 5700, more than double the median price for open access publishing (US$ 2145, as uncovered by analyzing 894 open access journals with publically available prices). PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine, on the other hand, charge US$ 3000 per article. PLoS One pioneered the acceptance of scientifically sound articles irrespective of impact, yet it has been surpassed by Scientific Reports as the world’s largest journal, despite the fact that the latter offers the same service at a higher price.

The interest to publish in high-priced brand-name journals could be related to a more careful editorial process. However, our own experience suggests that the editorial process is no better than that of other journals. Indeed, about one third of the evaluations of Nature Communications services posted in Scirev, a journal evaluation website, include complaints about delays in manuscript handling and poor editorial management. We suggest the primary reason for such interest is scientific branding itself. Having a brand name and social media-friendly URL such as Nature, The Lancet, Science or Cell linked to a publication is still a sign of prestige, even if these publishers are widening their audience and becoming increasingly less exclusive.

The shift towards what we call “scientific branding” is happening at the same time as the scientific community is actively discussing means to improve publication standards. Open topics include finding new ways to evaluate quality and impact, as well as using our limited resources – of time and money – in more efficient ways. Associating specific brands and paying high publication costs in exchange for perceived prestige is not a path we should follow.


Alicia Kowaltowski and Ignacio Amigo, from Department of Biochemistry,
Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo, Brazil


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