Summary of Editorial Committee Meeting (January 5, 2020)of Journal of Palaeogeography

1. Overview

The First Editorial Committee Meeting in year 2020 ofJournal of Palaeogeographywas held in January 5, 2020 at Cuigong Hotel, China University of Petroleum (Beijing). Editorial Committee Members and Editorial Office Staffs who attended this meeting include Guo-Ping Bai, Zhi-Dong Bao, Zeng-Zhao Feng, Guang Hu, Zai-Xing Jiang, Zhen-Kui Jin, Cheng-Sen Li, Chun-Ming Lin, Long-Yi Shao, Ya-Sheng Wu, Yin-Ye Wu, Ben-Zhong Xian, Xiao-Min Zhu, Sheng-He Wu*, Yong-Sheng Zhang*; Xiu-Fang Hu, Min Liu, Yuan Wang, Xiu-Juan Zheng. (*represents Editorial Committee Member ofJournal of Palaeogeography(Chinese Edition)).

Representative from Springer Nature, Ms. Xiao-Li Pei attended this meeting as well.

The meeting was chaired by Prof. Zeng-Zhao Feng who first introduced to all attendees relevant information ofJournal of Palaeogeographybeing included in the “Action Plan for the Excellence of Chinese Science, Technology and Medicine Journals (the Action Plan) － Key journals project”. Several important issues related with the development of our journal were proposed for further discussions. ①Journal of Palaeogeographywill continuously cooperate with foreign publisher with OA pattern in the future; ② Awards to persons who have made contributions to the journal; ③Adjustment of our journal section; ④ Charging publication fees on domestic authors to support the service fee for the hiring staff; ⑤ Editing and publishing the 《Chinese Palaeogeography》; ⑥ Soliciting special issues or special subjects for the journal; ⑦ Improvement of the Editorial Committee ofJournal of Palaeogeography.

Successful discussions were made during this meeting with an enthusiastic atmosphere, which all members spoke freely and actively.

2. Discussion content

All Editorial Committee Members expressed their sincere and warmful congratulations to the great success thatJournal of Palaeogeographyhas acquired since its launching. It is confirmed thatJournal of Palaeogeography, with an international developing pattern and idea, already established international influence and propagation effect, has the good foundation to be ranking in the first-class international geosciences journals. Many good and constructive suggestions have been proposed regarding the problems thatJournal of Palaeogeographyis facing and how to elevate in the future.

After the meeting, the Editorial Committee and Editorial Office ofJournal of Palaeogeographysummarized the discussions and suggestions as followings.

1) Continuously using OA pattern

All Editorial Committee Members agreed that it’s profitable for our journal to continuously cooperate with foreign publisher with an OA pattern in the future which optimizes the publisher’s advantage as a platform to strengthen and promote the international influence and propagation effect of our journal and ranking in the first-class international journals as earlier as possible.

2) Whether to charge publishing fees from domestic authors

Most members disagreed to charge publishing fees at current stage, especially just from domestic authors. They considered that our journal is still at its developing stage, charging publishing fees to authors (especially domestic authors) will reduce their submission initiative and thus potential author groups will be lost. Some members suggested following measures to solve the current revenue and expenditure status of the Editorial Office as “applying for the‘publication funding’”, “distributing manuscript fee”, “high publication fee and high manuscript fee”, “charging fees over colorful figures”, “charging fees from authors who need printed version”, “charging fees from authors whose paper exceeds certain pages” etc. which they thought will not have bad impact to the journal.

3) Regarding the adjustment of the journal section

定量指标数据和相关实证材料从高校科研管理部门直接获取，将所有高校的定量指标值按单指标进行归一化处理，并构造单指标隶属度函数。对于定性指标，需先将其制成调查表，组织10位专家到待评价高校进行考察和调研，并给每项指标打分。每位专家对每所高校的每项指标有且仅有10分的打分权力，但这10分须赋予不同的等级。

Most members proposed that the sections of the journal should coincide with the its scope and should be as wide as possible and professional; “Fixed sections” and “Flexible sections” can be combined together to reflect the journals’s characteristics. Some members suggested that some sections reflecting international study frontiers and hotspots should be incorporated, e.g., “fine-grained deposits”, “modern deposition”, “deep strata exploration”, “sedimentary facies and unconventional oil and gas” and reviews having strong influence like “frontiers and progress” .

4) Soliciting special issues and special subjects

Most members suggested to invite famous specialists, as Specially Invited Editors, to solicit special issues or special subjects forJournal of Palaeogeographywhich will definitely elevate the academic influence of the journal.

5) Regarding the project funding

All members agreed that “The money should be spent where it should be used”. The funding should be spent reasonably and closely with the target of “soliciting high quality papers for our journal, elevating the academic quality and international influence of our journal, promoting our journal to be ranking the first-class of international journals”.Inviting specialists with strong academic influence to solicit corresponding fees, awarding to excellent reviewers,editors and editorial committee members should be taken into consideration. Some members suggest to establish the“Palaeogeography awards” to cultivate and promote the subject construction.

6) Improvement of the Editorial Committee

All editorial committee members agreed that each member should be encouraged to actively join in the development of the journal, such as writing or recommending papers, recommending new members, organizing academic meeting as a convener, actively soliciting special issues or special subjects for the journal, etc. In addition, the advantage of young scientists (tracking the study frontiers actively and producing papers more quickly) should be emphasized. Young Editorial Committee Members should be cultivated as the talents for the development of the journal and an active and high effective Editorial Committee will be established.

3. Some preliminary decisions

Some preliminary decisions have been made regarding the developing targets ofJournal of Palaeogeographybased on the summary of above mentioned suggestions and comments.

1)Journal of Palaeogeographywill cooperate with appropriate foreign publisher in an OA pattern, promoting the international degree of the journal with an internationally dominant publication and propagation pattern.

2) 16 papers from in total 158 papers published during 2012-2018 will be selected as excellent papers taking a rate of 10%. The first prize will be 2-3 papers, the second prize will be 10-13 papers; Certificate of “Excellent paper award”and financial incentives will be given to the winners to express our sincere thankfulness to their great contributions in promotingJournal of Palaeogeographybeing indexed in SCI, being included in the “Action plan-key journals” project and being included in the “Chinese most influential academic journal”.

No one objected that rewards will be given to excellent reviewers, 4 Associate-Editors-in-Chief who have taken the responsibility of proof reading and other members who made special contributions to the development ofJournal of Palaeogeography. It will be conducted as originally planned.

3) “Fixed sections” will be combined with “Flexible sections” and scientific and academic quality of a paper will be the most important basins. More excellent papers will be attracted from palaeogeography and relevant domains.

4) The Editorial Committee and Editorial Office will invite famous specialists of the domain to solicit special issues or special subjects, to attract more excellent papers to be published in our journal and furthermore elevate the international influence and corresponding downloads and citations ofJournal of Palaeogeography.

5) Whether to charge publication fees was actually not resolved. Most members disagreed with charging publication fees from domestic authors which is, of course reasonable. However, other measures suggested by the members are difficult to proceed. The funding from the University for running the journal and the 1,000,000 RMB funding of the“Action plan-key journals” project are not allowed to pay for service fees of the hiring staffs which is really a difficult problem.

4. Hopes

1) All Editorial Committee Members are sincerely hoped to send back your feedbacks and suggestions of the issues discussed during this meeting by emails before January 31st, 2020, especially your selection results of the “Excellent papers” including 2-3 first prize papers and 10-13 second prize papers from in total 158 papers published during 2012-2018.

2) Members who are interested in soliciting papers for a special issue or a special subject are sincerely welcome to do the work.

3) Sincerely hope all members will write or recommend one high quality paper forJournal of Palaeogeographyin year 2020, the early the better.

4) Sincerely hope all members will continuously propose your constructive suggestions regarding the improvement of our journal in the journal, to promoteJournal of Palaeogeographybe a first-class international journal with first-class quality, more influence and distinguished discipline characteristics.