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

AIMS & SCOPE

EMBO reports publishes both long- and short-format papers that communicate major findings in all areas of molecular-, cell- and developmental-biology, offering novel physiological, functional insight that is robustly documented by independent lines of evidence. The journal also welcomes studies that confirm important findings, refute prominent claims in the literature, as well as null data on important, open questions in the biosciences. See also Publishing unpredictable research outcomes.
Papers can be in any area of biology, particularly including:

• Membranes & Transport
• Cell & Tissue Architecture
• Signal Transduction
• Chromatin & Transcription
• RNA
• Proteins
• Cell Cycle
• Genome Stability & Dynamics
• Development
• Differentiation & Death
• Cellular Metabolism
• Ageing
• Neuroscience
• Immunology
• Plant Biology
• Microbiology & Pathogens
• Molecular Biology of Disease
• Genomic & Computational Biology
• Structural Biology
• Evolution
• Ecology & Environmental Science
• Biotechnology

ARTICLE TYPES

Research Articles, Scientific Reports, Resources

Long- and short-format original research papers that report important advances in any aspect of molecular biology. Manuscripts should communicate a major finding, offering physiological/functional insight of wide interest that is robustly documented by independent lines of evidence.

Reviews

Concise and accessible overviews of cutting edge science, written and peer-reviewed by leading scientists.

News & Views

EMBO reports papers highlighted and contextualized.

Science & Society

Essays and articles on the impact and application of science: uses and abuses of science, communication and education, policy and practice.

Opinion

Experts offer commentary and opinion on topics on and beyond molecular biology, including regular columns. The views presented in Opinions are those of the authors and do not represent the position of the journal, EMBO or John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Correspondence

Feedback commenting on the ideas, information and views put forward in EMBO reports, including correspondence concerning the validity, reproducibility or interpretation of data or in articles published in the journal.

Editorial

Policies, news and comment from members of the editorial staff.

TRANSPARENT EDITORIAL PROCESS

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

EMBO reports 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 EMBO reports

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

EMBO reports invites authors to have a Peer Review Process File included alongside their published papers. Authors can decline to participate in this initiative.

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, EMBO reports 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 - 2023

Initial decision: 5.2 days

Post-review decision: 37.3 days

Article acceptance: 198 days

*Median number of days from submission

Total research articles published: 240

Total research articles published Open Access: 156

% of research articles published Open Access: 65%

EMBO reports 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, Reports, Exploratory Reports, Resource, Methods and Reviews is: €6490/$6890/£5590*
• The list APC for a Comment is: €2000/$2090/£1690*

*APCs are subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable. Charges for Reviews or Comments 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: EMBO Reports 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. 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). All applications for discretionary APC waivers and discounts should be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review process or after acceptance are unable to be considered.

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 in the following categories:

• Corresponding authors of articles accepted in 2024 based in Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovenia, and Türkiye, who do not have access to publishing support or sufficient funds.
• Corresponding authors of articles accepted in 2024 based in India, who do not have access to publishing support or sufficient funds to cover the reduced APC applicable.
• 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.