journal resignations – Retraction Watch

Dozens of board members resign from big-data journal after mass staff firings

More than three-fifths of the editorial board of a biomedical sciences journal resigned after the publication’s operations moved from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, China, and the editors and software team were fired with 30 days’ notice.

GigaScience is published in partnership between Oxford University Press and GigaScience Press, the publishing division of BGI, a genomics company based in Shenzhen, according to their website.

On October 29, B.F. Francis Ouellette, a bioinformatics consultant, sent the resignation notice in an email addressed to Oxford University Press and the new editor-in-chief of the journal, Xun Xu. According to the email, which was signed by 30 of the journal’s 49 board members, those resigning became “increasingly concerned about the recent structural and editorial changes at GigaScience and how they may affect the journal’s long-standing commitment to publishing rigorously reviewed, reproducible research.”

Editors of criminology journal resign amid concern about review times

The top editors of a criminology journal have stepped down after the society in charge of the publication assessed concerns about manuscript review times.

The board of the American Society of Criminology decided “a change of leadership was required due to some ongoing operational issues with the Criminology journal,” according to an announcement on the society’s website. “We appreciate the contributions of the prior editors.”

Kelly Vance, associate director of the society, said the organization had no further comment beyond the announcement.

Math journal editors resign to launch open-access title ‘free from pressure or influence’

The managing editors and entire editorial board of Mathematical Logic Quarterly, a Wiley title, have resigned, citing “unilateral decisions” by the publisher “that affected the editorial process.”

“We do not believe that Wiley is currently providing an environment that allows the editors to do their editorial work according to the standards of the academic community and free from the negative influence of commercial and profit-oriented interests,” the editors wrote in their resignation letter.

The editors have launched a new journal with a “diamond” open-access model, not charging fees to read or publish papers.

Editors resign from sedimentology society journal amid ‘extraordinary and troubling times’

The chief editors of the journal Sedimentology have resigned, along with nearly a third of its associate editors, as the society running the title amended its publishing contract.

The International Association of Sedimentologists (IAS), a scientific society based in Belgium, owns the journal and contracts with Wiley to publish it.

The IAS had run an operating deficit since its 2021-22 fiscal year, and began discussing “legal, financial, and strategic considerations” in October 2023, according to a letter from IAS acting president Daniel Ariztegui to its members. These moves included changes to the handling of manuscripts and copy-editing at Sedimentology and an amendment to the society’s contract with Wiley.

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