When the 53-year-old preeminent scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives, published by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), went dark at the beginning of December there was concern in the research community. This shutdown followed an announcement in April that the journal was no longer accepting new submissions because of funding constraints at the NIH and its National Institute of Environment Health Sciences (NIEHS) that funds and operates EHP. But Chemistry World has learned that the journal now expects to transition to a new non-governmental publisher, possibly in a matter of weeks.
EHP is currently transitioning to a more streamlined operational model that the NIH says will maintain its capacity to publish high-impact research.
The journal’s website was taken offline in early December, after the contracts that maintained the site expired in November. However, it appears that no content has been lost, as it is all backed up in multiple locations around the world through the LOCKSS Program, a digital preservation archive. All of EHP’s articles will be brought back online once the transition process is complete, according to the NIH.
Regarded as a top journal spanning fields like experimental toxicology, epidemiology and exposure science, EHP has been a pioneering open access publisher. For over two decades the publication has been diamond open access, which means there are no article processing charges for authors to publish in it and its articles are freely accessible to all.
Many researchers like Jamie DeWitt, an environmental and molecular toxicologist at Oregon State University, are still concerned. She notes that EHP is one of the top tier journals in the environmental health sciences and the toxicological sciences. ‘Its articles usually concern emerging and/or current issues that are relevant to public and environmental health,’ DeWitt tells Chemistry World. ‘One of the advantages of being housed within NIEHS was that the editor-in-chief was an NIEHS scientist, so was someone who was generally actively engaged in environmental health science research in some way.’
Cost concerns
She suggests that the journal may suffer if it is handed to an external publishing house. ‘There are many reputable publishers who house environmental health science journals and who have dedicated editors, editorial boards and support staff, but many times the publishers are handling multiple journals so any one journal will not receive the level of attention that EHP received while housed within NIEHS,’ DeWitt adds. ‘I don’t know what this will mean, but it certainly won’t be the same. Could be better or not.’
Sven Jordt at Duke University School of Medicine’s environmental health programme, says that EHP has published important analytical chemistry research, including pioneering work involving per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination. He adds that the journal had a public footprint and the ability to raise awareness on important topics, so he is worried for its future.
‘It’s obviously highly concerning – this is the leading environmental health journal and has pioneered publication in the field since the 1970s,’ he says. ‘I sincerely hope that there will be a commercial publisher picking this up, but then the question is what costs will there be for authors,’ Jordt continues. ‘If it’s a commercial publisher, then there will be article processing costs.’ He suggests that any transition to a new publisher will likely take several months, including building a web repository and gathering an editorial board, as well as reviewers.
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