Physiological reports: Standing openly for sound science

It is my honor and pleasure to be appointed as the next EditorinChief of Physiological Reports. I thank The Physiological Society (TPS) and the American Physiological Society (APS) for the trust placed in me. I am delighted to follow the steps of the Founding Editor, Sue Wray, and the current Editor, Tom Kleyman. I thank Tom and Sue for their wise words and encouragement on approaching the transition. Physiological Reports has a unique place in relation to the other journals of TPS and APS. It is a young journal that will celebrate its tenth anniversary of publication in December 2023. From its inception, it has been a fully openaccess, online journal supported by the publisher Wiley. Physiological Reports has a distinct mission to publish sound science and research papers that are accepted “on the basis of scientific rigor, adherence to technical and ethical standards, and evidence that the study is sufficiently wellconceived and the data support the conclusions” (https://physoc.onlin elibr ary.wiley.com/journ al/2051817x). Beyond assessing the concept and scientific question addressed by the research, editors look for welldefined experimental design, validation by replicate experiments, transparent figure presentation, and, where relevant, appropriate statistical analysis. The emphasis on sound science makes Physiological Reports an intrinsically inclusive journal in terms of content. Providing the sound science criteria are met, the research advance may relate to any area of physiology and can be descriptive, correlative, confirmatory, or overlapping with prior publications, or, indeed, report negative outcomes. The authors who wish to submit novel and/ or mechanistic research studies are also welcome; yet a full mechanistic explanation of the process under study is not a requirement for publication. Indeed, it is of value for authors to know that they can submit their manuscript to Physiological Reports for a rapid route to peerreviewed, final publication in an openaccess journal that is associated with esteemed professional societies and a major publisher. The publication of sound science papers is valuable in many ways. As a general principle, it is important that the outcomes of research, whether novel or not, should reach the public domain. More specifically, demonstrations of reproducibility are essential on the long path from basic discovery research to clinical translation. Reporting of negative results and the disproving of hypotheses support the advancement of a field by avoidance of future investigation of “dead ends” and help to focus research attention onto alternative hypotheses. Publication of novel findings for which a full mechanistic understanding is currently lacking helps authors to move on in their research and may assist with future funding applications. Pursuant to these goals, Physiological Reports provides an efficient peer review and publication process for the authors. About 50% of manuscripts arrive by transfer from other journals of TPS and APS, Acta Physiologica published by the Scandinavian Physiological Society, or certain physiologyrelated journals published by Wiley (Table 1). The inclusion of initial peer review reports with transferred manuscripts enables editors to make rapid decisions based on the sound science criteria and to feedback to the authors the key points in revision that should be addressed before acceptance can be considered (e.g., items of figure presentation or text changes to clarify experimental details or interpretation of data). For manuscripts that arrive by direct submission, the handling Editor will assign relevant expert reviewers from the Editorial Board or the wider field to undertake full peer review. Between January 2022 and October 2022, the mean time to first decision has been 22.8 days and the mean time from acceptance to the publication of record has been 42 days. My vision for Physiological Reports centers on two themes: to grow both the journal content and the visibility of the published articles. These goals are intrinsically linked together: by growing the breadth and depth of research topics published by the journal, it will become more visible to a wider readership and should attract new authors; by including strategies to make the published papers as visible as possible, we aim to attract in new readers and authors and encourage published authors to return. We will progress these goals through a suite of new initiatives. As an openaccess journal listed in PubMed, Physiological Reports is inherently inclusive to readers: articles can be discovered by any researcher or member of the public anywhere in the world who has access