Recently our editors had the opportunity to talk with Professor Jian-He Xu, the Editor in Chief of this journal, to learn more about what he hopes we can accomplish together with Bioresources and Bioprocessing (BRBP).
Latest update about the journal
Over the last 2 years, a total of 79 articles, including 11 reviews and 68 research articles, have been published since the first article appeared online on April 22, 2014. Furthermore, we released 4 themed issues: 1) Systems and Synthetic Biology; 2) Cell-Free Biomanufacturing; 3) ISBBE 2015: Biosystems and Biodesign Engineering; and 4) ACB2015: Marching Toward a Sustainable Future. In 2016, we plan to put out 2 more special issues, focusing on “Food Resources and Bioprocessing” and “Microbial Genetics and Industrial Biotechnology”. We are happy to see that this journal has attracted a great deal of attention (greater than 30,000 clicks per single paper) and many citations (over 1.0 citation per article on average), as determined in a Google search from Oct. 8, 2015.
What made you interested in running an open access journal?
As China and other Asian regions are producing more and better-quality biotechnological papers every year due to economic growth and academic promotion, it is a good time and opportunity to establish a new international journal in the field of biotechnology and bioengineering. This will enable the world to hear important voices from developing Asian countries. To better meet this need, we chose the open access model for BRBP, which is fully sponsored by the State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, a national laboratory supported by the Chinese government.
How do you see open access developing in your field?
In addition to serving emerging markets, BRBP also attracts many excellent papers from many developed countries, including the U.S., Japan, Germany and other European countries (e.g., BRBP 2: 36; 2: 34; 2: 26; 2: 4; 1: 25; 1: 24; etc). This may reflect the outstanding merits of open access, which dramatically enhances the visibility and usability of published articles for readers and authors alike, without any restrictions due to copyright issues. I believe such an advantage will become increasingly important in the upcoming era of ‘internet plus’ or ‘WeMedia’. This is especially true for BRBP, since we are living in a century of rapidly evolving biology and bioeconomy.
Outstanding merits of open access, which dramatically enhances the visibility and usability of published articles for readers and authors alike, without any restrictions due to copyright issues.
What challenges do you see ahead for your journal?
Currently it is completely free to BRBP readers and authors, since all the article-processing costs have been fully covered by the sponsor (SKLBE). In the future, when the sponsor’s limited budget can no longer cover the rapidly increasing number of submissions, hopefully it can be commonly addressed by multiple parties who enjoy the benefits of the open access journal, including authors, readers (or libraries), publishers and/or sponsors. Of course, editors and reviewers may also help us partially alleviate this potential problem by maintaining the quality of the journal.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I would like to acknowledge and honor the precious time and dedicated efforts of our numerous peer reviewers. In the past two years, more than 390 scientists have undertaken the peer review tasks for over 250 submissions. Among them, 9 excellent reviewers who treated more than 6 submissions or resubmissions, including some of the editorial board members, have won the honor of “BRBP 2015 Outstanding Contribution Award”. They are: Prof. Kaziyuki Shimizu (Kyushu Tech, Japan); Prof. Y-H Percival Zhang (Virginia Tech, USA); Prof. Hui-Yong Jia (Emory Univ., USA); Prof. Hongzhang Chen (CAS, China); Prof. Yinbo Qu (Shangdong Univ., China); Dr. Yu-Cai He (Changzhou Univ., China); Dr. Jian Zhang (ECUST, China); Prof. Qin Ye (ECUST, China) and Prof. Qiang Hua (ECUST). In addition, Prof. Papita Das (Jadavpur Univ., India) also won the same honor in recognition of his excellent paper published in this journal (BRBP 2014, 1: 3) with over 25 citations. I hope BRBP will continue its healthy growth in 2016 and more contributors and reviewers/editors will win our awards in 2017.
