Abbreviated title (ISO 4) eLife Edited by Randy Schekman | Language English Publication history 2012–present | |
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Discipline Biomedicine, life sciences Publisher eLife Sciences Publications | ||
eLife is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal for the biomedical and life sciences, It was established at the end of 2012 by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Max Planck Society, and Wellcome Trust, following a workshop held in 2010 at the Janelia Farm Research Campus. Together, these organizations provided the initial funding to support the business and publishing operations, and in 2016 the organizations committed USD$26 million to continue publication of the journal.
Contents
The editor-in-chief is Randy Schekman (University of California, Berkeley). Editorial decisions are made largely by senior editors and members of the board of reviewing editors; all of whom are active scientists working in fields ranging from human genetics and neuroscience to biophysics and epidemiology.
Business model
In September 2016, the journal announced that starting on 1 January 2017, it will introduce article processing charges of USD$2,500 for papers accepted for publication.
Abstracting and indexing
The journal is abstracted and indexed in Medline, BIOSIS Previews, Chemical Abstracts Service, Science Citation Index Expanded, and Scopus. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2015 impact factor of 8.303. However, the journal claims that it will not promote its impact factor. In an interview, Howard Hughes Medical Institute then President Robert Tjian reflected on eLife and noted, "The other big thing is, we want to kill the journal impact factor. We tried to prevent people who do the impact factors from giving us one. They gave us one anyway a year earlier than they should have. Don't ask me what it is because I truly don't want to know and don't care."
eLife Podcast
The eLife Podcast is produced by BBC Radio presenter and University of Cambridge consultant virologist Chris Smith of The Naked Scientists.
eLife digests
Most research articles published in the journal include an "eLife digest", a non-technical summary of the research findings aimed at a lay audience. Since December 2014, the journal has been sharing a selection of the digests on the blog publishing platform Medium.