There are a large number of academic journals to choose from as a planetary scientist when publishing one’s work. Most of our work today is published in a handful of well-respected journals, many of which have served our community well for decades. However, over the last decade or so, the academic publishing industry slowly began to change: they began creating new journals that no one asked for, they increased article processing charges without justification, they developed and promoted harmful bibliometrics, they erected paywalls to publicly funded research, and they degraded the quality of the services that they once used to provide. If academic publishers and authors were once in a symbiotic relationship, today the relationship is best described as parasitic.
Planetary Research is a new journal that aims to serve the real needs of the planetary science community. This journal uses the diamond open access publishing model, which means that it is free for authors to publish and free for everyone to access. The journal is owned by a community-run non-profit organization, the Planetary Research Cooperative, and by design the journal will never make a profit. The board members of this organization are active planetary scientists who understand the changing needs of our community.
The Planetary Research editorial board is responsible for coordinating the peer review of manuscripts that are submitted to the journal and is directly responsible for the quality of the papers that we publish. The editorial board is composed of an editor-in-chief, editors, and associate editors (listed below). The editor-in-chief and editors are appointed by a search committee that is overseen by the Planetary Research Cooperative and the associate editors are appointed by the editor-in-chief in consultation with the other members of the editorial board. All terms are for four years and may be renewed.
Each manuscript submitted to the journal will be assigned to a single editor who will be solely responsible for deciding whether it should be published or not. (The editor-in-chief is just a normal editor with additional administrative roles.) Since the editor is responsible for guaranteeing the integrity of the peer-review process, they will be named on the final published manuscript. Associate editors may be called upon by the editor to assist in various aspects of the peer review process, such as suggesting reviewers, contacting reviewers, or providing an independent assessment of the manuscript and reviews.
The default review process used by the journal is single-anonymous, which means that the identity of the authors will be provided to the reviewers, but that the reviewers and associate editors will be anonymous. The reviewers and associate editors may decide to make their identities known by signing their reviews. Single-anonymous peer review is not ideal for all cases, and for this reason, we will use double-anonymous peer review when asked for by the authors. In this case, the identities of the authors are hidden from the reviewers up until the point when the manuscript is accepted for publication. To increase transparency, and to promote civil discourse, all accepted manuscripts will be accompanied by a peer-review report that will provide the unedited reviews, rebuttals, and editorial decisions.
In consultation with the planetary science community, we have developed a set of policies for authorship, plagiarism, name changes, data and code availability, corrections, and the use of artificial intelligence (among others). These policies are directly accessible from the journal’s home page using a single click. The journal policies are meant to be living documents and they will be updated whenever it is necessary to do so.
The journal is committed to following open science best practices. We will be requiring every author to have an ORCID iD and all references in a manuscript will require a persistent identifier (such as a DOI) when one is available. Every published manuscript will contain an Open Science Declarations section that provides information about the author contributions, sources of funding, data and code availability, and a description of any competing interests. All data used in a manuscript will be required to be publicly accessible, and any significant derived data products that are presented in a manuscript will need to be uploaded to a data repository and cited using a persistent identifier. The journal will ask that all numerical codes developed or used in a study be as open as is allowed. If a code is restricted or requires credentials to access, the exact procedures and conditions under which the credentials can be obtained will need to be provided.
Our journal is starting with a blank slate and we anticipate that changes will need to be made as we learn what works, what doesn’t, and what the community expects from us. We welcome any feedback and encourage you to join the discussion on our Mattermost forum (see the cooperative’s website to create an account). Lacking the bureaucratic inertia that plagues large publishers and societies, all changes will be made quickly and proactively.
The inaugural editorial board is listed below and includes eight editors and eleven associate editors. The editorial board has considerable prior editorial experience and its expertise covers all major fields of planetary science. We will accept new editor and associate editor applications on a continuing basis and the composition of the editorial board will be re-evaluated periodically. We look forward to receiving your submissions!
Editors
Associate editors
