PeerJ has won the 2013 ALPSP publishing innovation award!

For many years the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) has handed out the publishing innovation award. PLOS ONE won several years ago, and last year the winner was Peerage of Science. The competition this year was immense, with 32 entrants and five shortlisted finalists. Our view is that the award could have gone to any one of the other finalists: Altmetric, Drama Online, FigShare, and Nature ENCODE. That’s why we were genuinely, shockingly surprised and delighted to have been selected the winner by the awards committee. The award was given late in the evening last Thursday at the 2013 ALPSP International Conference outside Birmingham, UK.

PeerJ was announced in June 2012 with one goal in mind – to establish a highly credible, scientifically sound peer-reviewed Open Access journal for as low a cost as possible. That meant $99 for the ability to publish every year for the rest of a scientist’s life. We wanted to show the world that it doesn’t have to cost thousands, either through subscription charges or Open Access fees, to publish quality science. This award is validation that the PeerJ mission is worthwhile and that more experiments like it are desired in scholarly publishing.

Of course, PeerJ would not be possible without the dedication and belief in the model from its academic editors, reviewers, and especially our early authors. This is something for all of us to be proud of. As we move forward, we aim to deliver even more value beyond what you expected or paid for.

We also want to acknowledge PeerJ’s superb staff – Alf Eaton, Jackie Thai, and Patrick McAndrew. Thanks to Tim O’Reilly for joining the PeerJ Board and advising us in our most critical steps. And thanks to Kaveh Bazargan and River Valley for working with us to create a modern offline reading experience with the PDF and XML data that matches our homegrown innovative online experience. A big thank you to ALPSP and the awards sponsor, Publishing Technology, for recognizing PeerJ. Finally, our family members for their patience and sacrifice as we work long hours and weekends to build PeerJ.

Hurrah!

Jason and Pete, founders of PeerJ