The Journal of Parkinson’s Disease Takes the Open Road

A new year has arrived with many transitions taking place in society at large, and certainly also in science. One area that is definitely changing is the attitude towards publishing, particularly the recognition that published works should be as widely accessible as possible [1]. Yet many important scientific publications have long remained inaccessible to many potentially interested readers, including not only clinicians or scientists, but increasingly also the general public and those with the lived experience [2]. When the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease (JPD) was launched 12 years ago, one of our primary goals was – and continues to be – the widespread dissemination of content to further advance Parkinson’s disease research and to benefit the quality of life and outcomes of those affected by Parkinson’s disease. We are convinced that we could greatly facilitate this mission by providing readers around the globe open access to the published material in JPD.

As Editors-in-Chief, we are therefore very pleased to announce that from the current Volume 13, published January 2023, JPD will transition to a Gold Open Access publication. This means that all articles published in this Volume and onwards will be immediately and permanently freely available online for readers to view, download, and share. All accepted papers published from January 1 will be published Open Access under a Creative Commons license, and authors will retain copyright to their published work. The associated open access fee has been set to be extremely competitive compared to those set by other journals in the field. The fee will not apply to certain publication types, like invited articles, editorials, and commentaries. Fees may be waived under certain circumstances, particularly for low-income countries as defined by Research4Life, upon application from the authors. This migration to a fully open access publication model will enable authors to comply more easily with funder and institutional mandates and, importantly, will allow us to share the important content of JPD with the growing readership of our journal.

With a strong Journal Impact Factor of 5.520 and Cite Score of 6.1, JPD is now recognized as one of the most influential journals in the world devoted exclusively to PD. In recent years the number of open access papers published in JPD had been steadily increasing, so that approximately half of our previous volume is already publicly available. The transition to fully open content will undoubtedly help to further increase the journal’s impact and thus offer greater benefit to the entire PD community, including authors, readers, libraries, hospitals, funding agencies – and ultimately persons living with Parkinson’s disease or atypical parkinsonism. An important goal for this coming year is to capitalize on earlier developments within JPD that were aimed at delivering better services to people with parkinsonism [3]; we will report more about this development in the coming issue.

In this new year, we also want to continue offering other valuable services to authors who are considering JPD as a home for their scientific work. We offer a rigorous peer-review process and operate with rapid manuscript processing times. The average time from submission to first decision is currently just 18 days. This would of course be impossible without the ongoing support of our impressive roster of Associate Editors and the advice of our editorial board. The start of 2023 is a great moment to thank these many wonderful colleagues for their time and commitment to the JPD. A special thanks goes to the Associate Editors whose term has ended in recent months:

Editors for Reviews: Darren Moore, Daniela Berg

Associate Editors: Howard Federoff, Thomas Gasser, Peter LeWitt, Tamas Revesz, Laura Volpicelli-Daley

Our journal would not have been where we are now without your dedicated support! And at the same time, we are of course very pleased to announce the arrival of a terrific set of new colleagues who will now enhance our roster. Please join us in welcoming:

Editor for Reviews: Tiago F. Outeiro

Associate Editors: Roongroj Bhidayasiri, Camille B. Carroll, Kelly D. Foote, Tim Lynch, Anat Mirelman, Alastair Noyce, Rick Schuurman, Antonio Strafella, Nienke M. de Vries, Doris Wang and Allison Willis

Social Media Editor: Rui Araújo

We are convinced that with your arrival, and also with the support of those whose term continues in the coming year, we are ready to make further important contributions the fast-growing field of Parkinson’s disease in 2023. A happy new year to all of you!