Editor's note: We would like to express our deepest gratitude to Dr. Shilatifard for his insight, collaboration and dedication to Science Advances over the years. The journey began with the desire to establish an open access journal for the community, a relatively new idea. Under Dr. Shilatifard's leadership, idea became reality, creating a journal that serves the scientific community across a range of disciplines and is now a leader in the open access space. We wish Dr. Shilatifard all good things in the future!
—H. Holden Thorp, Editor-in-Chief, and Laura Remis, Managing Editor
The end of 2023 marks the end of the 10th and final year of my time serving the publication mission of AAAS at Science Advances. I was a member of the founding group of deputy editors and served as the journal’s first academic editor. Back in 2014, my motivation to become involved with starting a new, open access journal was simply for the love of science. I had already served a full term as an associate editor for the Journal of Biological Chemistry and was toward the end of my second term as an editor at Molecular and Cellular Biology. At the time, I saw intense growth in the pursuit of scientific knowledge by many academic institutions across the globe. This resulted in a major increase in research laboratories and, as a result, in graduate students, medical students, and physician scientists.
This emerging plethora of outstanding young scientists with stunning credentials and research visions produced notable results that needed to be published in impactful journals. However, many of these highly qualified and motivated individuals were met with rejection letters from these journals. Which is worse: To hear that your work is not good enough to be considered for review, or to have it rejected after seemingly endless revisions to appease the reviewers? The comments in the rejection letters usually indicated that “limited space in the journal does not justify further consideration.”
Wait a second, isn't the purpose of scientific publication to disseminate knowledge so that others can build upon it? Why can't we have a journal where there is no limit on publishing groundbreaking work to push science forward? Why must scientific publication be so daunting and at times depressing?
This pipeline problem was a great concern for me. Those who pursue a career in science because of their love of science could become dismayed by the difficulty of publishing their work in a reputable journal. And as we know, failing to publish comes with real consequences such as a lack of funding or struggling to secure an academic position, which sadly can cause many to leave scientific research altogether.
It was distressing to know that entrenched practices in scientific publishing could play a role in a young scientist’s decision to drop out of academia, and more importantly, that significant scientific data and insights that could contribute to advancing studies broadly were at risk of lying dormant. I also knew that rejecting papers based on limited space did not truly reflect the editorial responsibility to judge whether scientific data and interpretation are worthy of publication. By 2014, the limitless publishing capacity of the internet began to make all these concerns feel like ones that we should really be able to address. To become part of this movement, I accepted an invitation to serve on the Editorial Board of e-Life.
Then, in the spring of 2014, I received a call from Marcia Mcnu*tt, Editor-in-Chief of the Science family of journals, asking if I would be interested in joining a new effort that she and the AAAS Board were initiating: A new, open access journal, Science Advances, that would strive to publish rigorous and transformative science in an unlimited, open access format. Better yet, the scientific review side of the journal would be handled by practicing scientists who were leaders in each respective discipline that the journal covers. I thought, “What is there not to love about this idea?”
We met at the AAAS office in Washington, DC, that summer. I can clearly recall the excitement that filled the room, and how the possibilities felt endless! The six founding deputy editors, Zakya Kafafi, Philip Yeagle, Gary Machlis, Kip Hodges, Barry Pogson, and I discussed with Marcia how to organize and operate the new journal. I was honored that my deputy editor colleagues selected me to serve as the chair of the Deputy Editorial Board for several years and then as the first academic editor for Science Advances. The journal grew rapidly. In 2015, our first full year of operation, the journal received just short of 1900 submissions. Nine years later, we have nearly 50 deputy editors and over 350 associate editors, all deeply committed to science. They manage ~20,000 annual submissions with a current acceptance rate of 10.3%; that translates into publication of roughly 2100 highly impactful papers with broad coverage across diverse areas of science. The scientific editors are blessed to be working with a superb team of colleagues at the at Science Advances editorial office. The staff, also deeply committed to science, smoothly manage assignments, reviews, and the entire publishing process for over 400+ new manuscripts per week. Science Advances truly is a well-oiled machine.
As I close this chapter of my career with the journal and AAAS and look back at the past 10 years, I find that serving Science Advances—for the love of science, alongside all my wonderful and dedicated colleagues—has been one of the greatest honors of my life. I truly believe that we have built an essential venue for sharing groundbreaking scientific discoveries of all kinds, published via a fair review process and in a timely manner. The journal’s management team, which includes Holden Thorp (Editor-in-Chief of the Science family of journals) and Laura Remis (Managing Editor for Science Advances), and the journal’s Executive Committee are working on plans to move the journal forward over the next 10 years. I know that the love of science abides with my colleagues and at Science Advances, and I have no doubt that the best is yet to come.
