For Immediate Release
Oak Brook, IL (June 17, 2021) – The Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) is pleased to announce the transition of SLAS Discovery and SLAS Technology to a Gold Open Access publishing model as of January 1, 2022. SLAS will partner with Elsevier, which will make both journals available through its online platform, ScienceDirect, in turn, making articles instantly and easily accessible to scientific audiences worldwide.
The transition to an open access model of SLAS Discovery and SLAS Technology will provide greater public access to the innovative research SLAS authors produce and should result in an increase in citations for both journals.
“Moving to an Open Access model will allow our journals to be more accessible to a wider and more diverse audience of researchers involved in laboratory automation,” says SLAS Scientific Director Marshall Brennan. “Consistent with SLAS's mission and our interests in better serving life sciences research globally, this transition will be an important part of how SLAS and the laboratory automation community as a whole grows in 2022 and beyond."
SLAS CEO Vicki Loise sees this partnership as a positive step forward for the Society and its publications. “We know that the transition of our journals from our current hybrid subscription model to open access is important to our community, and the time has come to make that change,” says Loise. “With our current publishing contract [with SAGE] expiring at the end of 2021, we analyzed all aspects of our publishing process and growth potential. We are confident that Elsevier’s vast experience with open access publishing will help us succeed in this transition.”
SLAS will continue to honor its mission of leading the pursuit of research excellence and is dedicated to the sharing of knowledge across scientific communities and academic disciplines. Elsevier has a long track record of meeting authors’ needs and has a wealth of experience in launching and flipping journals to open access, developing journal portfolios for success, and in helping societies respond to initiatives such as Plan S and grow through Transformative Agreements.
Anthony Newman, Senior Publisher for Applied Biochemistry journals, said “These two SLAS journals are of great value to the lab automation community. The increased lab efficiencies that result accelerate the application of scientific research in life sciences, for the betterment of society worldwide. I am looking forward to working with the Society and the editorial team of both of their journals to increase visibility and exposure using open access, which in turn will drive more rapid progress in the community.”
More information about the SLAS open access transition can be found in our FAQ on our respective journal web pages for SLAS Discovery and SLAS Technology.
SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international professional society of academic, industry and government life sciences researchers and the developers and providers of laboratory automation technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.
Elsevier has long partnership records with over 600 learned scientific societies and works with organizations worldwide to support them in their mission of education support of the scientific communities. This includes support for global open science such as the partnership with Next Einstein Forum to launch the pan-African open access journal Scientific African. www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals/societies.
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Jill Hronek
Director of Marketing Communications
Telephone: +1.630.256.7527, ext. 103
E-Mail: jhronek@slas.org
