London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

A new publishing platform for open access biomedical research has launched. LSHTM Press will provide an open access platform to publish peer-reviewed research and high-quality educational resources, in accordance with the LSHTM mission to improve health and health equity in the UK and worldwide.

The Press is a new initiative, developed in response to the increasing costs of publishing open access, and the many mandates and policies from funders and governments around the world. It will facilitate innovative and experimental publishing methods while striving towards equity in academic publishing in global health.

It launches with and will continue to develop a focus on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and is in alignment with central LSHTM vision and values. Two dedicated EDI leads sit on the LSHTM Press Steering Committee, and the whole team is committed to promoting inclusivity and reducing barriers.

Associate Professor of Epidemiology at LSHTM, Elizabeth Brickley, said: “The Press is committed to ensuring fair representation with respect to gender, race and ethnicity, and country of origin. Editorial boards will be expected to include experts from the countries and regions in which the research is primarily conducted, particularly where the research is undertaken in low and middle income countries. And applications from new journals will be expected to provide details of how they will ensure continued compliance with the EDI strategy, for example how they will approach peer-reviewer selection and their approach to authorship.”

LSHTM Press will initially focus on journals but has the capacity to develop into publishing books and other output types in future. The LSHTM-affiliated journal Community Ear and Hearing Health will be the first publication to be published on the platform.