Swiss open-access publisher Frontiers has reportedly dismissed almost the entire leadership of two medical journals amid a heated argument over editorial independence. 31 editors of Frontiers in Medicine and Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine were dismissed on May 7 after the editors complained that company staff were interfering with editorial decisions and violating core principles of medical publishing.
The editors say Frontiers' publication practices are designed to maximise the company's profits, not the quality of papers, and that this could harm patients. According to Frederick Fenter, executive editor at Frontiers, the company had no choice but to fire the entire group because they were holding up the publication of papers until their demands were met.
In a 13-page Manifesto of Editorial Independence that was sent to the Frontiers executive board on March 23 and posted online on May 8, the three editors-in-chief of the two journals, along with 28 'chief editors', who were responsible for journal sections such as Dermatology, Pathology, and Thrombosis, cited a series of problems in the way that the journals are run.
One key issue, the manifesto says, is the power of so-called associate editors, of which each journal has about 150. These are academics who handle the review process and can accept a manuscript—after it has passed muster with two review editors—without any involvement from the editors-in-chief or field editors. The critics call this process 'totally unacceptable' because it sidesteps the editors-in-chief, and a violation of internationally accepted standards. The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), for instance, says that 'Editors-in-chief should have full authority over the editorial content' of their journal.
The manifesto also says that Frontiers staff interfered with editorial decisions, for instance by moving manuscripts from one editor to another to accelerate review, inviting authors to write a commentary without the knowledge of editors, and sometimes 'deliberately overriding' editorial decisions. The critics also object to a series of special issues put together by guest editors, called Frontiers Research Topics, that get published under their journal's flag even though they had nothing to say about them. The whole system is designed to publish as many papers as possible, says Matthias Barton of the University of Zürich in Switzerland, who was editor-in-chief on both journals.
In a lengthy point-by-point rebuttal published on May 7, Frontiers dismissed all of the charges and said it complies with WAME and other international guidelines.
