The EMBO Journal has been EMBO's flagship publication since its launch in 1982. With a scope that spans all areas of molecular biology, the journal has an international reputation for quality and originality.

• Aims & Scope
• Transparent Process
• Bibliometrics
• Charges & Open Access
• Privacy Policy

AIMS & SCOPE

The EMBO Journal publishes papers describing original research of broad general interest in molecular and cell biology - a particular emphasis is placed on molecular mechanism and physiological relevance.

The journal encourages and publishes articles that report novel findings of wide biological significance in the areas of:

• Ageing
• Autophagy
• Cancer
• Cell Adhesion, Polarity & Cytoskeleton
• Cell Cycle
• Cell Death
• Chromatin, Epigenetics & Genomics
• Developmental Biology
• DNA Replication, Repair & Recombination
• Ecology & Evolution
• Immunology
• Membrane & Intracellular Transport
• Metabolism
• Microbiology, Virology & Host Pathogen Interaction
• Molecular Biology of Disease
• Neuroscience
• Plant Biology
• Post-translational Modifications, Proteolysis & Proteomics
• RNA Biology
• Signal Transduction
• Stem Cells
• Structural Biology
• Systems, Chemical & Computational Biology
• Transcription
• Protein Biosynthesis & Quality Control
• Vascular Biology

TRANSPARENT EDITORIAL PROCESS

• Review Process Files
• De-emphasis of confidential comments
• Cross-peer review
• Co-review
• Bibliometrics

The EMBO Journal has a fair and transparent process to rapidly publish important science.

Transparent Review

• No confidential referee remarks
• Published anonymous referee reports and editorial correspondence
• Editors respect requests to exclude specific referees
• Editors justify editorial decisions in detail and specify what is required for a revision

Flexible Formatting

• No journal-specific formatting required at submission; manuscripts are assessed for science, not for style

Scooping Protection

• Similar findings that are published by others during review or revision are not a criterion for rejection
• In exceptional circumstances, editors may consider manuscripts that have just been scooped

Cross-Referee Commenting

• Referees are invited to comment on each other's reports before the editor makes a decision, ensuring a balanced review process

Single Round

• Papers rarely undergo more than one major round of revision
• Referees are asked to focus on essential revisions and to consider the feasibility of experiments they suggest
• Revisions are invited only if they are possible in a realistic time frame
• Editors ensure that referees do not raise new non-essential points upon revision
• More than 95% of invited revisions are published at The EMBO Journal

Fast Process

• Editorial decisions are returned within a week and referee comments in less than a month
• After acceptance, we can publish fully edited papers within 10 days

Approachable Editors

• Authors can discuss manuscripts with editors at any stage in the process, including during revision and following rejection. Editors may invite author feedback on referee reports before reaching a decision

Informed Evaluation

• Scientific editors undertake a comprehensive evaluation of each manuscript. Editorial board members advise rapidly on manuscripts

Source Data

• Authors are encouraged to publish the unprocessed source data underlying graphs, gels and micrographs alongside the figures to promote data transparency and reuse
• Supplementary information is restricted to essential data supporting key claims in the main paper. Structured datasets, models and detailed protocols are also permitted

Manuscript Transfers

• Authors can elect to transfer manuscripts with referee reports between the EMBO publications. Editors prioritize transfers and base decisions on the available information, ensuring exceptional manuscripts can be published without delay

REVIEW PROCESS FILES

Since 2009, The EMBO Journal has invited authors to have a Peer Review Process File included alongside their published papers. Authors can decline to participate in this initiative. Currently, 95% of primary research papers at The EMBO Journal are linked to a Peer Review Process File. At the same time, the willingness of referees to participate in peer review at The EMBO Journaldid not change.

A Peer Review Process File documents the timeline and all the correspondence relevant to the processing of the manuscript at the Journal. It contains the referee reports from each round of review, alongside the author responses and the editorial decision letters, and, where appropriate, additional correspondence between the editors and the authors. Importantly, referees remain anonymous.

The time line includes the actual dates of each submission, resubmission and decision.

DE-EMPHASIS OF CONFIDENTIAL COMMENTS

As part of our transparency initiative, we now forego 'confidential referee comments'. We actually rarely encounter comments that are at odds with the main referee report, although referees sometimes repeat their views in more straight language. Nevertheless, the existence of this additional layer of commenting begs the question 'What went on behind the scenes?'. Confidential comments are clearly appropriate in the rare cases where there are concerns about ethical standards, data integrity, biosecurity or conflicts of an academic or commercial nature, which should be communicated directly to the editor.

CROSS-PEER REVIEW

In order to optimize the peer review process, we now actively encourage referees to comment on each other's reports. For the majority of manuscripts, we send the reports to all referees a day before the decision is made encouraging feedback. It is essential to emphasize that we do not expect every referee to comment on every other report—this will be exception, not the norm. The lack of a post-review comment will in no way lessen our appreciation of the primary report filed. We envisage two major scenarios where post-review feedback is important: if a referee wants to note that one of the other referees has raised erroneous or non-essential issues, or indeed if a bias is perceived, or if a referee has overlooked an essential point raised by another referee and wishes to reinforce that point. Importantly, we will not always go with the last word— the additional feedback will help us think in a more integrated way about the decision, and, if need be, engage in further consultation. Note that this additional step does not delay the editorial process.

CO-REVIEW

We subscribe to referee confidentiality rules. On the other hand, we are aware of the relatively common practice of handing a review onto someone else in the laboratory. If carried out correctly, this can in fact be an important part of training, but it should be reserved for experienced postdoctoral researchers. Thus, The EMBO Journal allows co-refereeing with one other senior member of a referee's laboratory as part of the mentoring process only if the primary referee has independently evaluated the manuscript and agrees with the report filed. For co-review, conflict of interest and confidentiality rules apply to both referees. In order to provide accountability and appropriate credit, we request that the name of the co-referee be documented to the editors. If an invited referee does not have the time to review, another member of the laboratory or institute can be recommended to the editors.

EDITORIAL TURNTIMES* & BIBLIOMETRICS - 2024

*Median number of days from submission

The EMBO Journal encourages applying due care in interpreting bibliometric measures such as CiteScore, h5-Index and Journal Impact Factor among others. EMBO Press is a foundation signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) pointing to flaws in the Journal Impact Factor, particularly in its application to the assessment of the research output of individuals. Please read this editorial for a more detailed discussion [The EMBO Journal (2015) 34, 1601-1602].

Citation Distribution of Items Cited in 2021

Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2022

CHARGES & OPEN ACCESS

All papers submitted from 1 September 2023 are published Open Access (OA) under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. OA publishing is supported by article processing charges (APCs), payable by authors, their institutions, or funders when articles are accepted for publication.

• The list APC for Research Articles, Resource, Methods and Reviews is €6,790 / $7,990 / £5,790*
• The list APC for a Comment or Perspective is: €2000 / $2390 / £1690*

*APCs are subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable. Charges for Reviews, Comments or Perspectives only apply to non-commissioned articles or where institutional publishing support covers the costs. No additional charges apply, and all other article types are exempt from charges.

Tiered APC Pricing: The EMBO Journal is part of Springer Nature’s country-tiered APC pricing pilot, which allocates countries to a pricing tier (a percentage of the journal’s standard APC, ranging from 100% to 0%) created using information from a number of sources, including real-world availability of funding in any given country, as well as their historic waiver and discount needs. The APC is set automatically upon an article’s acceptance, based on the corresponding author’s country of residence. Find out more about the APC applicable to your country.

Open Access Funding: Information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs can be found here: open access funding & support services. You can also check your eligibility under Springer Nature’s institutional open access agreements and discover whether this journal is included.

Waivers and Discounts: In cases where the country-tiered APC cannot be funded through an OA agreement, institutional, funder or other APC support, and where insufficient funds for the applicable APC are available, requests for APC waivers and discounts can be made. All applications for discretionary APC waivers and discounts must be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review process or after acceptance are unable to be considered. Such requests from authors will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and will only be granted in cases of financial need (see Springer Nature’s open access policies for journals for more information).

EMBO Programme Support for APCs: EMBO Press will ensure that no author is excluded from its journals due to a documented inability to pay for publication charges and so offers further APC support programmes for authors as follows:

• Corresponding authors who are currently funded under the EMBO Young Investigator (YIP) or Global Investigator (GIN) schemes.

Please contact [email protected] for additional information.

PRIVACY POLICY

Please see the journal's data privacy policy.