Nature

The Nature Family

Nature's headquarters are in London. The journal's publisher, NPG, is a division of Macmillan, in turn affiliated with the German publishing group Georg von Holtzbrinck. Compared to its main competitor, the society-based journal Science, Nature's print circulation is much lower, yet the trend toward electronic publishing arguably makes circulation figures less significant. In addition, a large number of reputable Nature sister journals are published, devoted to special research areas. Currently, the Nature family consists of 15 Nature Research journals, such as Nature Genetics, which was the first and was launched in 1992, Nature Reviews journals, Nature Clinical Practice journals, and Nature Protocols, an online resource for information on scientific protocols. All Nature sister journals operate independently. Recently, NPG expanded with new online products in Asia, like Nature China and Nature India. As bibliometric analyses have shown, Nature has a wider international scope than Science. In 2007, NPG launched a free preprint server called Nature Precedings, which allows an informal exchange among researchers on new preliminary findings.

Role in Science Communication

Nature is considered one of the most relevant journals to science communication for the following reasons: (a) its high impact factor (a measure of [Page 510]citation frequencies and an indicator of scientific relevance), (b) its high circulation, (c) its multidis-ciplinary orientation, and (d) its professional press service. As announced on its Web site, Nature ensures” receive its authors maximum exposure for their work” in the world's mass media, both print and broadcast. Because of its high visibility in the research community and beyond, a publication in Nature is very beneficial to scientists for career purposes. Similar to the trend for other high-impact journals, the submissions to Nature have slightly increased in the last decade. By its own account, Nature received 10,332 submissions in 2007, of which 7.82% were actually published.

Editorial Process

Nature's editors are looking for interesting papers that will have an impact beyond a specific field. Unlike the journal Science, Nature has no external editorial board. A team of science-trained editors makes all decisions. As submissions are triaged, only a small fraction of submitted manuscripts are sent out for review, while the others are promptly rejected. The decisions about which papers will eventually be accepted are based on the criteria of scientific quality, novelty, and the potential interest of a broad readership. Papers are usually sent to two or three referees. On the basis of the reviews, the final decision on publication is made by the manuscript editor, who is advised by staff members.

...