Editorial | J—A Multidisciplinary Open Access Journal to Accelerate Scientific Communication | Martyn Rittman, Franck Vazquez

"At its best, academic publishing facilitates the communication of the latest research results, accelerates sharing new and verified knowledge, and creates synergies between researchers in answering society’s most fundamental questions. At its worst, publishers can obstruct the emergence of new ideas and new principles, and unnecessarily delay crucial advances in research and innovation. Publishers must balance tradition with innovation, cost with perceived significance, and the needs of authors with the expectations of research communities, society, funders, and governments.

With the growing trend towards open access (OA) and the rise of the Internet, new possibilities have opened up for accelerating knowledge creation and broad dissemination. However, the attitudes of publishers have often led to preserving traditional processes, many of which are artefacts of print publication.

We have taken the decision to launch a new MDPI journal simply called J. It will be an integral part of a framework that contributes to the immediate availability of all scientifically sound research output, including negative results and replication studies. Articles submitted to J will be made available immediately via our preprints platform https://www.preprints.org/ and will be peer-reviewed solely on the basis of scientific soundness and accuracy, without dwelling on the question of significance—for which journal editors are often poor judges.

The research community will see new ideas made quickly available and an increased level of synergy. Industry, policy-makers, and the general public will additionally benefit by gaining barrier-free access to the latest research.

MDPI has always sought to put scholars, especially authors, at the center of its publishing activities and maintain high standards of integrity, coupled with high efficiency. Articles submitted to J in 2018 will be published free of charge, if accepted after peer-review. Following the policy we apply to all our journals, scholars reviewing for J will see their contribution recognized by receiving a voucher entitling them to a significant discount on the article processing charge (APC) of their next article published in any MDPI journal. Openness and sustainability have always been key to our projects. J is a continuation of these values and an opportunity to take them further via a framework that we believe meets the evolving needs of scholars and their communities.

We warmly invite the research community to support J as authors, editors, reviewers, and readers. We are excited about the possibilities for this journal and look forward to its success."