key: cord-0914005-vo1fqpgf
authors: Beerling, David
title: Impact factors and COVID-19
date: 2021-08-11
journal: Biology letters
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0391
sha: 8ccac3d264133d864991844372f154d1b073a589
doc_id: 914005
cord_uid: vo1fqpgf

nan

open access to ensure more world-leading research is available to all. Other Royal Society journals involved in this important initiative are Interface, Proceedings A and Proceedings B. For all of these journals, the flip to a fully open access model will be achieved when 75% of articles are being published open access. Please view here for further information: https://royalsociety.org/news/2021/05/royalsociety-open-access-plans/.

Mid-2021 marks a convenient point to make an initial assessment on the effects of how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted publishing in Biology Letters. Comparing submissions and published articles for 2018 and 2019 ( pre-pandemic years) and 2020 ( pandemic year) reveals the metrics are broadly similar across years. There is some suggestion of an uplift in submissions from April through to June in 2020 relative to these same months in other years. This may reflect a positive effect of the pandemic with research laboratories throughout the world shutting down around March 2020 and researchers shifting to working from home. However, we have not yet seen a subsequent uplift in numbers of published articles. These findings of relatively modest effects so far are consistent with analysis of COVID-19 impacts on six journals of the British Ecological Society [2] . Time will tell what the impacts are in the long run. We very much hope scientific research activities continue without significant hindrance by the pandemic.

One of the great strengths of Biology Letters is our agility in responding to new research trends with timely review articles, mini-series and Special Feature issues, i.e. collections of research articles proposed by guest editors [1] . This is exemplified by our well-received Blue Carbon collection edited by Catherine Lovelock (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/ topic/special-collections/blue-carbon). We encourage prospective editors with ideas for Special Features to get in touch with the editorial office. In a new initiative, we are planning a Special Features 'New Talent' collection of articles from Royal Society-funded researchers to showcase their research. Please do look out for this exciting collection in the future.

I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of our authors, and offer sincere thanks to our excellent 80-strong editorial board, which includes a small outstanding team of Handling and Review Editors. For 2021, we also welcome Catherine Talbot at Florida Tech, who has taken on the role of our new Preprint Editor. We thank our reviewers for their hard work, who are recognized each year with our published list of reviewers and through our partnership with Publons. The journal could not function without the support of our highly efficient editorial, production and marketing teams, who are warmly thanked on behalf of myself and the Royal Society for their excellent work. The past 18 months have really been an unprecedented time, and your efforts in keeping the show on the road in the face of remarkable challenges are greatly appreciated. Figure 1 . Examples of media coverage of two recent widely reported articles published in Biology Letters. Screenshots taken from New Scientist (https://www. newscientist.com/article/2274278-wasps-with-no-social-life-may-find-it-harder-to-recognise-others/) and The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/environ ment/2021/mar/17/sperm-whales-in-19th-century-shared-ship-attack-information).

2020 Success, challenges and opportunities

The influence of the global COVID-19 pandemic on manuscript submissions and editor and reviewer performance at six ecology journals