Introducing the Co-Editors-in-Chief of PeerJ Open Advances in Zoology: Professors Lesley Rogers and Michael Wink

We are delighted and excited to announce our first Editor-in-Chief partnership for the Open Advances series. Professors Lesley Rogers and Michael Wink will jointly steer the development and forthcoming launch of the new PeerJ Open Advances in Zoology journal.

Both are award-winning senior academics, with decades of experience in the field, conducting cutting-edge zoological research at the highest level. Together, they will provide the intellectual leadership for the journal; they will help to recruit an Editorial Board; and they will define the ‘global challenges’ which the journal will be focussing on.

Lesley Rogers, Professor Emeritus at the University of New England, Australia, discovered lateralization in the chick forebrain, when lateralization was still believed to be unique to humans. Professor Rogers joined the University of New England in 1985 and was appointed to a personal Chair in 1993 as Professor of Neuroscience and Animal Behaviour. In 2000 she was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. She combines her research interests with a commitment to communicating science to a broader audience and writing books. Her publications include 300 scientific papers and book chapters, 19 books and many edited special issues, mainly on brain, behaviour and evolution. Her interests extend to her actively promoting the role of women in science and addressing issues of biology and politics. Her work has been cited over 22,000 times. Lesley was a founding member of the PeerJ Editorial Board.

“Amidst the rising costs and competition for Open Access publication of scientific papers, this new journal offers free and equitable publication of excellent science to researchers in all countries. This is an exciting new venture aimed at cutting-edge research and discussion of ideas addressing the pressing challenges to animal life now and into the future,” – Lesley Rogers

Michael Wink is a Senior Professor at Universität Heidelberg. Michael has a wide range of expertise, including ornithology, chemical ecology, and evolution. An expert in phylogeny, Michael has a particular interest in birds and ornithology, and is one of the world’s authorities on owl molecular taxonomy and systematics of owls. In 1989, Professor Wink was appointed Professor of Pharmaceutical Biology at Universität Heidelberg, and has held numerous positions at the university. He was a founding member of the PeerJ Editorial Board and has been Section Editor for Zoology since 2021. Michael is an incredibly productive researcher, having published over 1200 original papers and more than 20 books, as well as mentoring over 125 PhD students. His work has been cited over 55,000 times.

“This novel series of PeerJ opens up a new era of Open Access publishing, as it will be free of charge for both readers and authors. I hope that we can attract excellent reviews and original contributions which provide new data, new syntheses or new challenges,” – Michael Wink

Dr. Stephen Johnson, PeerJ’s Publishing Editor for the Open Advances series, said “This is an exciting time for PeerJ and I am looking forward to working with Michael and Lesley to build a world-class editorial board, and define the scope of PeerJ Open Advances in Zoology in advance of accepting submissions. The journal will publish important work, with no financial barriers to publish or read, while continuing our commitment to the highest standards of ethics, data availability and developmental peer review.”

The Open Advances series will take on a crucial responsibility: combining the prioritization of research that tackles global challenges head-on, with an equitable approach that ensures every researcher has an equal opportunity to contribute to answering critical questions in their field.

The journal’s focus on the most important global challenges in zoology means that its scope will evolve as questions are answered, new avenues of investigation are discovered and new challenges facing the zoological world are identified. Michael and Lesley will work closely with the Editorial Board to identify the challenges which the journal will initially tackle, and oversee the creation of an evidence base that will address those challenges.

At PeerJ, we believe in empowering scholars to address the most pressing issues of our time, and that starts with removing barriers to equitable access to scientific communication, and allowing the expert community to determine and drive the scope and focus of the work they publish. With Lesley and Michael at the helm, we are excited to see what challenges the journal takes on, and the progress it makes in addressing them.

As for all journals in the Open Advances Series, PeerJ Open Advances in Zoology has a commitment to always be fee-free. We want to ensure that research addressing the most important issues of the day is freely accessible to all to read, and that its authors face no financial barriers to publication.

If you’re interested in being considered for the Editorial Board of Open Advances, you can send us your details here. If you’d like to keep up to date with the latest from the journal or the Series, you can sign up here.