STM publisher Springer has acquired the three pioneering 'living' open access journals: Living Reviews in Relativity (impact factor 19.25), Living Reviews in Solar Physics (impact factor 17.64) and the recently launched journal Living Reviews in Computational Astrophysics from the Max Planck Society. Furthermore, Springer has acquired the domain names livingreviews.org and livingreviews.eu, all registered Living Reviews trademarks, as well as the journals' wordmarks and logos.
With the first Living Reviews in 1998, the Max Planck Society launched an innovative model for scientific publications. The development of the Living Reviews journal is based on a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and the Heinz Nixdorf Center for Information Management, the precursor organisation of the Max Planck Digital Library. The unique concept at the heart of the Living Reviews is that authors can update the content as needed. The texts remain 'living' and, unlike conventional survey articles, will not inevitably become outdated. The Living Reviews will complement Springer's open access journal portfolio and other 'living' publications like the Live References.
Living Reviews in Relativity, launched in 1998, has an impact factor of approximately 19.25. The journal, published to date by the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), has held the number one slot in the international ranking of scientific journals in the category 'Physics, Particles and Fields' for the past several years. The peer-reviewed articles provide critical overviews of the current state of research in all areas of general relativity theory. The open access journal has become a valuable tool for the scientific community and is one of the first places a researcher looks to for information about current work in relativity.
Living Reviews in Solar Physics was founded under the auspices of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in 2004 and has an impact factor of approximately 17.64. The journal publishes freely available reviews of research in all areas of solar and heliospheric physics.
Living Reviews in Computational Astrophysics was launched by the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in 2014. The peer-reviewed online journal publishes freely available reviews of research in all areas of computational astrophysics.
All three open access journals are published online only, and all research reviews can be read by anyone. Graduate students can use the journals to start their initial literature surveys or to learn about fields peripheral to their own. Researchers can use them to quickly find the latest results in fields in which they are no longer up to date, to track down bibliographic references that they have not recorded, or even to find new areas with interesting interdisciplinary connections to their own in which their own skills can be applied. Lecturers can use them to find information and visual materials that can be used in presentations at all levels.
