PNAS Nexus

PNAS Nexus
Title	PNAS Nexus
Discipline	Multidisciplinary science
Abbreviation	PNAS Nexus
Publisher	National Academy of Sciences
Country	United States
Frequency	Continuous
History	2021–present

PNAS Nexus PNAS Nexus is an interdisciplinary, open-access scientific journal launched to publish high-quality research across natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, and medicine. It aims to provide a broadly accessible platform for authors affiliated with institutions such as the National Academy of Sciences (United States), Royal Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Max Planck Society, and other major organizations. The journal intersects with established venues and topics tied to institutions like Harvard University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, and University of Cambridge.

History

PNAS Nexus was introduced in 2021 amid broader changes in scholarly publishing similar to initiatives from Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley-Blackwell, PLOS, and Frontiers Media. Its launch followed precedents set by journals associated with academies like the Royal Society Open Science and programs at universities such as California Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and University of California, Berkeley. Early editorial leadership involved figures connected to societies and foundations including the National Science Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The first issues responded to global research priorities highlighted by events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Paris Agreement, and multinational collaborations like the Human Genome Project and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Scope and Editorial Policy

The journal's remit encompasses work relevant to domains represented by institutions like European Research Council, American Chemical Society, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, American Physical Society, and American Medical Association. Editorial policies reflect standards comparable to those of Nature, Science (journal), Proceedings of the Royal Society, and Cell (journal), including peer review practices paralleling processes at The Lancet, BMJ (journal), and specialty venues such as Journal of the American Chemical Society and Physical Review Letters. Manuscripts often bridge topics linked to projects at NASA, European Space Agency, CERN, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Ethical guidelines align with committees and declarations like Committee on Publication Ethics, Declaration of Helsinki, and accords endorsed by organizations such as World Health Organization and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Publication and Access Model

PNAS Nexus operates an open-access model in the spirit of initiatives like Plan S, the Budapest Open Access Initiative, and policies promoted by funders such as National Institutes of Health, Wellcome Trust, and the European Commission. Its publication workflow resembles continuous publishing and preprint-friendly approaches championed by bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv, and institutional repositories at University of Oxford and MIT OpenCourseWare. Article processing charges and waivers are managed with reference to policies from Gates Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and consortia like SCOAP3 and Knowledge Unlatched.

Abstracting and Indexing

PNAS Nexus is indexed and abstracted in major services comparable to listings in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, CrossRef, and DOAJ. Metadata integration is coordinated with infrastructures maintained by ORCID, CrossMark, COPE, and data registries used by Dryad Digital Repository, Zenodo, Figshare, and archives such as LOCKSS and PORTICO. Citation practices align with standards used in bibliometric analyses from Clarivate, Altmetric, Google Scholar, and assessment frameworks employed by Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings.

Reception and Impact

The journal's reception has been discussed in venues like Nature Communications, Science Advances, The Lancet Global Health, and commentary from stakeholders including Royal Society, National Academy of Medicine, Academia Europaea, and research universities such as Princeton University, Yale University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell University. Impact metrics are debated in contexts similar to evaluations by Journal Citation Reports, Scimago Journal Rank, and commentary found in outlets like The Scientist and Science (magazine). The journal contributes to discourse on open access alongside efforts by PLOS Biology, eLife, and institutional initiatives at European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

Governance and Editorial Board

Governance involves oversight comparable to boards at the National Academy of Sciences (United States), with editorial structures reflecting models used by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Royal Society Publishing, and multinational consortia like the International Science Council. Editorial board members are often affiliated with institutions such as University of California, San Francisco, Karolinska Institutet, ETH Zurich, Imperial College London, University of Tokyo, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and research centers like Salk Institute, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and Max Planck Institutes.

Notable Articles and Special Issues

Notable contributions include multidisciplinary studies intersecting projects like the Human Cell Atlas, ENCODE Project, and large-scale analyses related to climate change assessments in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; biomedical topics connected to responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and initiatives from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and World Health Organization. Special issues have focused on themes resonant with programs at NASA, European Space Agency, CERN, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and collaborations involving Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust. Papers have cited methods and datasets associated with repositories operated by GenBank, European Nucleotide Archive, Protein Data Bank, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and computational resources like XSEDE and PRACE.

Category:Academic journals