Pensoft Publishers, a leading open-access publisher of scientific journals, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Southern eDNA Society (SeDNAs) to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing in the field of environmental DNA (eDNA) research. By working together, the two organisations aim to accelerate the development and application of eDNA technology, ultimately contributing to a better understanding and conservation of our planet’s biodiversity.
The Southern eDNA Society is a recently established organisation of about 200 members that aims to facilitate communication, collaboration and knowledge transfer in the rapidly developing field of eDNA.
Pensoft is an innovative scholarly publisher of over 35 open-access, peer-reviewed journals across various disciplines, including the highly regarded Metabarcoding and Metagenomics (MBMG) journal.
Featuring research on metabarcoding and metagenomics from both basic and applied perspectives, MBMG has a CiteScore of 5.4 and is indexed in Web of Science and Scopus. The journal is published on Pensoft’s end-to-end scholarly publishing platform ARPHA.
The partnership will focus on enhancing the publication and dissemination of eDNA research, and increasing the visibility and impact of eDNA research, including by promoting eDNA conferences hosted by SeDNAs and research outputs from the eDNA community.
The Southern eDNA Society is excited to partner with the MBMG journal to advance our shared commitment to innovation, accessibility, and excellence in eDNA science. The exclusive discounted publication opportunities for SeDNAs members will help amplify their contributions to the global eDNA community.
Anastasija Zaiko, President of SeDNAs
To this end, both organisations will cross-promote each other’s activities, reaching a wider audience and fostering greater engagement within the eDNA community. Pensoft plans to support the dissemination of research presented at SeDNAs conferences, with the possibility of publishing special issues or topical collections in MBMG.
In addition, SeDNA members will receive a special discount on article processing charges in MBMG, which will hopefully encourage them to publish their work in the innovative open-access journal.
This memorandum of understanding builds upon a shared vision of advancing eDNA research and making scientific knowledge openly accessible. Pensoft has always expressed a commitment for open science and technological advancement and we are happy that we can take this step to support the growth and dissemination of eDNA science.
Prof. Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO of Pensoft
The partnership between Pensoft, MBMG and SeDNAs is not the first of its kind for the scholarly publisher. Recently, another journal launched and published by Pensoft, Nature Conservation, used a similar memorandum to strengthen the collaboration between the publisher and the Infrastructure & Ecology Network Europe (IENE). IENE has so far published several special issues of research papers based on scientific work presented at the network’s conferences in Nature Conservation, with the most recent example, a collection of articles associated with the IENE 2022 International Conference, dating from last month.
