PeerJ Inc., a new US-based open access academic publishing company, has formally announced its launch. Founded by academic publishing and technology professionals from PLoS ONE and Mendeley, PeerJ will publish a broad based, rapid, peer-reviewed journal, PeerJ, and a preprint server, PeerJ PrePrints. PeerJ will open for submissions in Summer 2012, and will publish its first articles in December 2012.
PeerJ will publish all well reported, scientifically sound research in the biological and medical sciences. The journal will operate a rigorous peer review process and will deliver the highest standards in everything it does.
It seeks to provide authors with low cost lifetime memberships giving them the rights to publish their papers freely thereafter. Three membership plans exist - Basic, Enhanced and Investigator. All member plans confer lifetime rights, and the three tiers allow members to publish once, twice, or an unlimited number of times per year in PeerJ.
Funding for PeerJ has come from a partnership between O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV) and O’Reilly Media. Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media and an Open Source leader, will join the governing board of PeerJ. He was reportedly instrumental in helping to block the passage of the 2012 RWA bill in the US Congress (which would have negatively affected open access to academic content in the US) and is a passionate advocate for open, unfettered communication in academia.
