Program areas at PLOS
Science and medical publishing are the core of plos program expense at over $28.6 million. The activities involved in our publishing operation include:editorial and production work - receipt and triage of submissions; performing/coordinating their peer review; and production and online publication of accepted articles. Marketing and outreach - promoting articles and inviting submissions, increasing awareness and understanding of open Science benefits and practices, promoting initiatives such as calls for papers, and creating resources for authors and reviewers.publishing ethics handling ethical and scientific concerns involving submissions and published articles.engagement with research communities (e.g. By attending/organizing conferences/events/workshops) - to ensure the journals and their policies reflect the research interests and values of these fields and communities.media - collaborating with authors, institutions, Science media centers and journalists to communicate research to both scientists and society.the scope of plos journals publishing in 2022 includes:plos one, the first multidisciplinary oa journal publishing all technically valid and ethical research, regardless of anticipated impact.plos biology, publishing articles of exceptional significance, originality and relevance in all areas of biological Science, from molecules to ecosystems to data-driven meta-research.plos climate, publishing research that addresses the causes and effects of climate change and dynamics.plos digital health, publishing research that advances healthcare through digital tools, technologies, and data science.plos global Public health, a new home for diverse research addressing global Public health challenges and inequitiesplos medicine, publishing leading research in all areas of medical Science, clinical practice and health policy including a variety of study designs.plos computational biology, publishing work that furthers the understanding of living systems at all scales through the application of computational methods.plos genetics, focused on original contributions in genetics and genomics that reflect the full breadth, interdisciplinary nature and impact of these fields on Science and medicine.plos neglected tropical diseases, the first journal solely devoted to chronic and poverty-promoting infectious diseases, publishes research on all aspects of ntds. Plos pathogens, first oa journal for breakthroughs in understanding pathogens and their interactions with host organisms. Plos sustainability and transformation, publishing leading research that drives progress towards sustainability of our renewable resources, economy, and society.plos water, a new home for all research related to water as a vital resource for people and the planet.in addition to managing the above portfolio of journals, in 2022 plos continued its focus on three broad areas: (1) open Science practices and initiatives around transparency, recognition, expanded opportunities for peer review, fighting publication bias, and reproducibility; (2) developing more equitable business models to enable a diverse and sustainable publishing ecosystem and (3) expanding our capacity to learn from diverse research communities across the globe to co-create solutions for a more open, effective, and fair research ecosystem. The following are key highlights from our work in 2022:plos partnered with dataseer to develop open Science indicators, introducing standards for measuring and tracking open Science behaviors across our journals.we established a representative office in singapore as part of our goal to deepen our understanding of diverse research communities and advance our mission for an equitable open Science future in locally responsible ways.journals launched in 2021 to address global health and environmental challenges published their first 1,000 papers as we continued to engage with and grow these communities in ways that promote multi-disciplinary discussion and exchange of knowledge.plos doubled our partnerships with institutions under our community action publishing, global equity and flat fee models which reduce or eliminate author publication fees.we continued our work to advance adoption of open Science practices as well as refine and develop new services for authors. We extended our preprint options to include facilitated posting to medrxiv and direct submissions from earthrxiv to select journals. As part of a project funded by the wellcome trust, we also tested two solutions to increase data-sharing and discovery: enabling authors submitting to plos pathogens to deposit their data with dryad upon submission, and creating an accessible data icon for manuscripts sharing data in one of our most-used repositories. Plos undertook several research projects to facilitate deeper understanding of our scholarly publishing system, including an assessment of interactive notebooks and code-sharing practices, measuring the impact of plos computational biology's code policy, and a survey of researchers' method sharing practices and priorities. All our findings are publicly available.plos continued to participate in the plan s price & service transparency framework, publicly reporting our pricing breakdown on our blog.plos continued our publication fee assistance programs, designed to overcome barriers to immediate availability, access and use of research. In 2022 plos provided $3.8 million in partial or full article processing charge (apc) waivers to authors. This major program expense, which appears as a contra-revenue for financial reporting purposes, demonstrates our support to Science and the global research community.