Blockchain Papers

Elliot Yates

No abstract is available for this record.

Rowan Brad Quni-Gudzinas

This paper presents a verified funder landscape and fit-score shortlist for sustaining QNFO, a two-year-old, solo-run, AI-assisted research platform that has produced an open corpus of approximately 1,000 method papers across seven program areas. Every funder fact was verified by live HTTP retrieval on 2026-08-13 across twenty-six pages spanning Web3 and IPFS ecosystem grantors, open-science philanthropy, and decentralized-science programs; anything not verified live is explicitly flagged. The analysis scores eleven funders on eligibility for an unaffiliated individual, topical fit with decentralized and epistemics-oriented research, and application friction, yielding a weighted ranking led by NLnet NGI Zero (calls open September 3, 2026; deadline November 3, 2026, 12:00 CEST) and Emergent Ventures, followed by the Foresight Institute, Filecoin Foundation, the Ethereum Ecosystem Support Program, Gitcoin, and the Effective Altruism funds. A sequencing calendar spans August 2026 through 2027, including the Sovereign Tech Agency Fellowship cycle. The paper documents application-readiness gaps (legal entity, residency, tax position, public identity), per-funder pitch skeletons, and framing cautions, including the risk of presenting corpus volume as rigor. It closes with an agent-executable action plan.

PaperProof Labs

PaperProof Protocol is a verifiable artifact publishing protocol built on Sui and Walrus. This slide deck introduces the core motivation, architecture, and product positioning of PaperProof. It explains how PaperProof models long-form digital artifacts such as preprints, technical reports, blog posts, datasets, software releases, and related discussion layers as protocol-native, versioned, and verifiable objects. The presentation also outlines PaperProof’s position in the Sui + Walrus stack, its relationship to SDKs and agent-facing skills, and its differences from traditional content platforms and web3 social protocols. The deck is intended for developers, researchers, ecosystem participants, investors, and infrastructure teams who want to understand why artifact versioning, content-addressed storage, and protocol-level verification matter for durable knowledge publishing. Official website: https://paperproof.site/ GitHub organization: https://github.com/PaperProofLabs

Aoi Ichikawa

<b>【Description】</b>[EN]:<i>Relocation Notice:</i><br>Due to an unavoidable structural incompatibility between the mandatory data-parsing frameworks of conventional academic repositories and the strict zero-knowledge proof requirements of this archive, this item has been relocated to this environment. To protect its integrity from automated systemic interference, it is currently placed under a Permanent Embargo, functioning exclusively as a cryptographic spatial anchor.<i>Strategic Ambiguity Regarding Future Disclosure:</i><br>While this archive is strictly restricted to preserve its current integrity and trade secret classification, this status does not definitively preclude the possibility of partial or full disclosure in the future. The management of this intellectual property remains entirely under strategic discretion. Furthermore, regardless of any future discoveries or the accumulation of operational insights, I assume no obligation to update this document, provide continuous reporting, or issue prior notification regarding any changes in disclosure status, scope, or conditions.This data archive contains the restricted documentation for the "Persona-Native Principle (PNP) - Final Form."<br>The existence and integrity of this document have been legally established and secured by an electronic certified date (timestamp) issued by a Notary Public in Japan.Cryptographic Proof of Existence (SHA-256 Hash):<br>5ec4637def8bc7a45b113d6dee25e4d88672865ebd37def1c9c30c95de581145[JP]:<i>移設記録:</i><br>従来の学術リポジトリが前提とする「データ開示と自動解析の強制力」と、本アーカイブが要求する「完全なアクセス拒絶による存在証明（ゼロ知識証明）」の間に、不可避の構造的非互換性（Structural Incompatibility）が確認されました。そのため、予期せぬシステム的干渉から完全性を保護するべく、本アーカイブは独自の暗号学的アンカーとして、本環境にて恒久的なエンバーゴ（封印）下に置かれています。<i>将来の開示に関する戦略的曖昧性:</i><br>現在の完全性および営業秘密としての分類を保持するために本アーカイブは厳格に制限されていますが、この状態は、将来においてその一部または全部を公開する可能性を断言して否定するものではありません。本知的財産の管理は、完全に戦略的裁量の下にあります。さらに、今後新たな発見や運用知見が蓄積された場合であっても、私は本文書の更新、継続的な報告、および開示状況や条件の変更に関する事前通知を行ういかなる義務も一切負いません。本データアーカイブは、『Persona-Native Principle (PNP) - Final Form』に関するアクセス制限付きドキュメントを格納しています。<br>本文書の存在および完全性は、日本国公証人による電子確定日付（タイムスタンプ）により法的に保全されています。存在証明ハッシュ値 (SHA-256):<br>5ec4637def8bc7a45b113d6dee25e4d88672865ebd37def1c9c30c95de581145<br><b>[Patent Status &amp; Strategic Protection]</b><br>[EN]:The core architecture and methodologies documented within this archive are subject to pending patent applications in Japan (e.g., Application No. 2026-000032). In accordance with our Strategic Non-Disclosure Policy, the disclosure of this specific jurisdiction and application number does not constitute a comprehensive representation of our global intellectual property portfolio. We reserve all rights to pursue, expand, or maintain provisional and formal protections across international jurisdictions without prior public notification.<br>[JP]:本アーカイブに記録された中核的なアーキテクチャおよび方法論は、日本国において特許出願中（例：特願2026-000032）です。当方の「戦略的非開示ポリシー」に基づき、この特定の管轄と出願番号の開示は、当方のグローバルな知的財産ポートフォリオの全容を示すものではありません。当方は、事前の公的通知なしに、国際的な管轄区域において仮出願および本出願による保護を追求、拡大、または維持するすべての権利を留保します。<b>【Terms of Access &amp; Confidentiality】</b>[EN]:<b>Restriction of Access &amp; Confidentiality:</b> The contents of this archive contain highly sensitive proprietary assets of Persona Foundry Aoi Design. All files are secured under restricted access. Any unauthorized access, disclosure, or attempt to bypass these restrictions is not permitted under applicable intellectual property guidelines.[JP]:<b>アクセス制限と守秘義務:</b> 本アーカイブの内容は、Persona Foundry Aoi Designの機密性の高い独自資産として厳格に管理されています。すべてのファイルはアクセス制限下で保護されており、不正アクセス、開示、または制限を迂回するいかなる試みも、適用される知的財産保護の観点から許可されていません。<b>【Terms of Use】</b>[EN]:<b>Disclaimer of Warranties:</b> The materials are provided "AS IS." The author makes no representations and extends no warranties of any kind, express or implied.<b>Limitation of Liability:</b> In no event shall the author be liable for any direct, indirect, or consequential damages arising from any unauthorized access, use, or inability to use the materials.<b>Governing Law and Dispute Resolution:</b> This Agreement and any disputes arising out of it shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of Japan. Any concerns will be resolved within the appropriate legal venues in Japan designated by the author.[JP]:<b>無保証 (AS IS):</b> 本データは「現状有姿」で提供されます。著者は、明示的か黙示的かを問わず、いかなる種類の保証も行いません。<b>責任の制限:</b> 著者は、本データへの不正アクセス、使用、または使用不能から生じるいかなる直接的、間接的、または結果的な損害についても責任を負いません。<b>準拠法および紛争解決:</b> 本規約およびそこから生じるいかなる紛争も、日本国法に準拠し、解釈されるものとします。懸念事項が生じた場合、日本国内における著者が指定する適切な法的手続きに従って解決されるものとします。<b>[ License ]</b>CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 InternationalThe statements within the document take precedence over any platform terms.<br>※投稿および掲載プラットフォームの規定にかかわらず、本文内の記載を優先します。<b>[ Files &amp; Integrity ]</b>File: PNP FINAL FORM - BILINGUAL_v1.0.pdfHash: 5ec4637def8bc7a45b113d6dee25e4d88672865ebd37def1c9c30c95de581145

PRAKHAR Kumar, Singh, Jagbeer

A decentralized system for academic credential verification using Ethereum blockchain and hybrid off-chain storage. The system replaces traditional manual verification by allowing institutions to issue digitally signed certificates whose cryptographic hashes are stored on-chain, ensuring immutability and tamper resistance. A dual-hashing approach (SHA-256 followed by Keccak-256) is used to enhance security and maintain compatibility with the Ethereum ecosystem. Credential files are stored off-chain (e.g., Supabase/IPFS) to reduce cost, while verification is performed by comparing hashes, achieving fast (under a few seconds) and reliable authentication. Overall, the paper demonstrates a scalable, secure, and efficient solution for real-world use cases such as academic admissions and recruitment.

James Lombardo

Open Knowledge Archive: Proposal for Merit-Based Interdisciplinary Preprint Server Description This proposal outlines a novel approach to open scientific publishing that addresses three critical failures in the current academic system: institutional gatekeeping, disciplinary fragmentation, and binary validation models. Key Innovation: A concentric ring architecture where papers enter freely at the outer rim (zero gatekeeping) and move inward based on accumulated validation. The center represents maximum interdisciplinary verification—where fields converge rather than separate. The Problem: Traditional journals reject AI-assisted research based on writing style, not content quality Independent researchers face systematic barriers (institutional email requirements, credential-based filtering) Interdisciplinary work falls between disciplinary silos Binary accept/reject model provides no pathway for progressive validation The Solution: Ring-based validation (outer rim = unverified, inner rings = progressively validated) Domain slices (papers positioned by subject area, can span multiple fields) Merit determines position, not credentials or authorship method Completely open access (readers never pay) Implementation: Phase 1: $8,000 proof of concept using AI-assisted development (Claude Code)Sustainable through hybrid revenue model (minimal per-paper fees, institutional partnerships, donations) All code released under AGPL-3.0 (prevents proprietary forks) Structured as irrevocable non-profit (cannot be commercialized) This proposal is released under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 to prevent commercial exploitation while enabling open collaboration. It represents infrastructure for the commons—research validation that serves knowledge, not profit. Includes: 1. Full architectural specification (ring/slice topology, validation pipeline) 2. Technical implementation plan (backend, frontend, moderation system) 3. Governance model (non-profit structure, anti-gaming provisions) 4. Financial sustainability model (revenue sources, cost projections) 5. Phase 1 budget ($8,000 for AI-assisted development) Status: Proposal stage. Seeking collaborators, volunteers, and initial funding.

Kazuki Nemoto, Shuma KUDO, Kohei Ueda, シロサキサクヤ · 6 authors

The current scientific system faces systemic challenges. Decentralized Science (DeSci) has emerged as a technological extension of the Open Science (OS) movement, aiming to improve transparency, accessibility, and equity in research through blockchain and Web3 technologies. While DeSci has gained traction in Western countries, little is known about its adoption in non-Western contexts. Here, we surveyed 37 researchers and technologists active in Japan’s emerging decentralized‑science (DeSci) during spring 2024 to assess how far the movement has progressed and what impedes its progress. Roughly 60% of respondents had already worked on blockchain projects and more than 80% owned crypto assets, yet almost 90% had discovered DeSci only in the past two years. Respondents largely embraced DeSci’s five core ideals: shared governance, transparent funding, open access, shared ownership, and equitable incentives. Meanwhile, four obstacles to growth were highlighted: low public awareness, difficulty sustaining engagement, limited talent diversity, and regulatory uncertainty. Taken together, the findings suggest that Japan’s DeSci community should also invest not only in further technical changes, but also in training, in broadening its talent base, and in setting clear guidelines. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the DeSci landscape in Japan and offers recommendations for its future development.

Usharani Hareesh Govindarajan, Dhiraj Kumar Singh, Weibing Zhong, Hong‐Zheng Sun‐Lin

The advent of the metaverse has sparked global interest, particularly in their potential to revolutionize various sectors, including education. This study examines the readiness of educational institutions for the transition from Web2 to Web3, focusing on the decentralized nature of the latter. It highlights the importance of analyzing both patents and academic papers to grasp the nuances of technological advancements and their implications for education. Employing a machine learning technique known as class-based TF-IDF (c-TF-IDF), the research analyzes 3317 patent grants and 4694 academic papers from 2015 to 2023. The findings reveal key technology specifications relevant to education in the Web3 era. The study adopts a four-layered approach to discuss these specifications, encompassing adaptive learning, innovative teaching methods, comprehensive evaluation, and a blend of scientific management with personalized service. The insights gained are synthesized into a proposed framework for Web3-enabled education, setting the stage for further exploration and discussion in this burgeoning field. This condensed overview serves to inform stakeholders in the education sector about the current landscape and future directions of Web3 technologies and their educational applications.

Authors unavailable

Over the past few years, the financial industry has undergone significant transformation as a result of a flurry of technological advancements.This examination of the most recent innovations that have altered the financial landscape focuses on fintech, blockchain technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital currencies.Startups in the fintech sector have created brand-new financial services with the goal of improving customer service, efficiency, and accessibility.Block chain technology has revolutionized data management and secure transactions, paving the way for decentralized finance (DeFi) and smart contracts.AI has improved risk assessment, fraud detection, and personalized financial services through advanced data analytics.Digital currencies, particularly crypto currencies and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), have also challenged conventional monetary systems and introduced new paradigms for global financial transactions.Consumers, regulators, and financial institutions face both challenges and opportunities as a result of these innovations, according to this research.To fully utilize these technologies' potential and address associated risks, the findings emphasize the need for industry-wide adaptation and ongoing collaboration.

Francisco J. Díaz, Carolina Menchaca, Lukas Weidener

Introduction The scientific community is increasingly interested in leveraging decentralized technologies to address systemic challenges such as the reputation economy, the monopolization of academic publishing, and the replication crisis. This study presents an analysis of the Decentralized Science (DeSci) landscape in 2023, focusing on organizational structures, technological foundations, and funding mechanisms of DeSci organizations. Methods A 16-question survey was distributed to DeSci organizations between December 2023 and April 2024, and responses from 49 projects were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods. Results Results highlight the prominent role of Ethereum as the dominant blockchain platform in DeSci, the varied applications of blockchain in scientific processes, and a significant emphasis on community building and infrastructure development. Funding sources within the ecosystem are moving towards partnerships with more traditional organizations, including academia. However, most projects lack DAO features for governance. It remains uncertain whether they will adopt more DAO-like structures in the future or deploy a different organizational model. Discussion Our findings offer a comprehensive overview of the progress and challenges facing the DeSci ecosystem, including slow project progression due to leadership issues and limited funding for most DeSci projects. By identifying key patterns and areas for improvement, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the factors driving success and sustainability in DeSci.

Khalid Saqr

No abstract is available for this record.

Katalin Bella

Book history research can address the emergence of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as an experimental initiative arising from technological advances in book publishing and the book trade.The relationship between NFTs and textual entities can be examined in two main areas.On the one hand, there is the tokenisation of authors' intellectual products, or born-digital content that is already created as NFTs.From this perspective, we will explore how NFTs can empower authors, enhance the reading experience, address copyright concerns and provide new revenue sources.By tokenising books, articles, and other literary works, NFTs can help to foster a decentralised and transparent ecosystem that benefits authors, readers and the publishing industry as a whole.Books, on the other hand, can also become NFTs for real assets as collectable works of art.This could mean transforming old and rare books, literary relics, and ephemera into NFTs, to allow individuals to authenticate and transfer ownership of tangible and intangible assets.In my paper I will concentrate only on the second. ***Book history research can address the emergence of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as an experimental initiative arising from technological advances in book publishing and the book trade.A few years ago, NFTs generated significant interest within the art and art trading communities, with large sums exchanged as artists, museums, and collectors embraced this new market.However, shifting economic conditions ultimately led to a market crash, drastically reducing the real value of cryptocurrency and, consequently, the NFTs purchased with it.Despite this downturn, NFTs still present a transformative economic opportunity for authors, creators and other book industry professionals.With speculators now largely absent, NFT creators and book industry professionals can refocus on collaboration and community-building through the medium. 1 The primary utility of NFTs lies in the digital verification of ownership, making them highly relevant to book history research that explores the transfer of ownership.

Lukas Weidener

No abstract is available for this record.

Holly Else

No abstract is available for this record.

Lynette Owen

This chapter outlines initiatives taken by publishers over the years as technology has developed; these included early and unsuccessful experiments with multimedia products in the trade sector with later more successful ventures in the educational and academic sectors. It charts the move of database publishing from CD-ROMs to online services and the move from DVDs for video content to online streaming services. Coverage is given to the powerful video games industry, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the development of handheld electronic devices including dedicated e-readers, tablets and increasingly sophisticated smartphones, all of which may provide platforms for copyright content. Coverage is also given to enhanced e-books and apps, many of which have been produced by publishers themselves, often working with software developers. The chapter flags the increased popularity of podcasts, although these rarely feature complete copyright works. Coverage is given to several legal disputes between the major trade publishers and Apple and Amazon on e-book pricing policies. In the academic and professional sectors, coverage is provided on aggregators which supply curated collections of e-books from a range of publishers to institutions on a subscription basis, with rightsholders normally receiving a share of revenue defined as sales rather than as licence income; this sector has also seen a rise in textbook rental models. Publishers need to acquire a suitably wide range of electronic rights in their head contracts with authors; this chapter provides a checklist of issues which publishers should raise with would-be digital licensees, in particular with regard to payment models, and a list of key contractual points for licence arrangements, whether for verbatim use of copyright content or for inclusion in multimedia products.

Karolj Skala, Zorislav Šojat, Josip Maričević, Davor Davidović · 11 authors

<ns3:p> <ns3:bold>Background:</ns3:bold> Traditional publishing models, open access and major publishers, cannot adequately address the key challenges of academic publishing today: Speed of peer review, recognition of work and incentive mechanisms, transparency and thrust of the system. </ns3:p> <ns3:p> <ns3:bold>Methods:</ns3:bold> To address these challenges, the authors propose Decentralised Academic Publishing (DAP), which is based on the novel HashNET DLT platform. The DAP introduces several innovative components: tracking the activities of all participants in the peer review process using blockchain and smart contracts, the introduction of the Scholarly Wallet for holding reputation (non-fungible) and reward (fungible) tokens, the use of the Scholarly Wallet as the main interface to the DAP platform, the Virtual Editor that enables automatic discovery of the research area and invitation of reviewers, and finally the global database of evaluated reviewers, ranked by the quality of their previous work. </ns3:p> <ns3:p> <ns3:bold>Results:</ns3:bold> The DAP platform is in the development phase, with the design and functionalities of all modules defined. An exception is the central component of DAP, the Scholarly Wallet module, whose first prototype has already been created, tested and published. The implementation of DAP is planned for the next phase of the HorizonEurope TruBlo project and other research initiatives. The DAP platform will be connected to the publishing ecosystem: 1) as a backend system (distributed blockchain database) for existing publishing platforms and 2) as a standalone publishing platform with its own API interface. </ns3:p> <ns3:p> <ns3:bold>Conclusions:</ns3:bold> The authors believe that DAP has the potential to significantly improve academic peer review and knowledge dissemination. It is expected that the use of blockchain technology, the fast HashNET consensus platform and tokens for reward (fungible) and reputation/ranking (non-fungible) will lead to a more efficient and transparent way of rewarding all participants in the peer review process and ultimately advance scientific research. </ns3:p>

Jameson G.D. Wiener, Carter J. Boyd

No abstract is available for this record.

Giovanni Puccio

SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19: from RESEARCH to PREVENTION. <strong>Make an offer in NFT</strong> (<strong>Non-Fungible Token</strong>): https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/35464008959780386460867213261413604412693850614154561847474562047209755377665

Authors unavailable

Headline INTERNATIONAL:Tesla’s bitcoin bet is not a gamechanger

Jedidiah Carlson, Kelley Harris

Engagement with scientific manuscripts is frequently facilitated by Twitter and other social media platforms. As such, the demographics of a paper's social media audience provide a wealth of information about how scholarly research is transmitted, consumed, and interpreted by online communities. By paying attention to public perceptions of their publications, scientists can learn whether their research is stimulating positive scholarly and public thought. They can also become aware of potentially negative patterns of interest from groups that misinterpret their work in harmful ways, either willfully or unintentionally, and devise strategies for altering their messaging to mitigate these impacts. In this study, we collected 331,696 Twitter posts referencing 1,800 highly tweeted bioRxiv preprints and leveraged topic modeling to infer the characteristics of various communities engaging with each preprint on Twitter. We agnostically learned the characteristics of these audience sectors from keywords each user's followers provide in their Twitter biographies. We estimate that 96% of the preprints analyzed are dominated by academic audiences on Twitter, suggesting that social media attention does not always correspond to greater public exposure. We further demonstrate how our audience segmentation method can quantify the level of interest from nonspecialist audience sectors such as mental health advocates, dog lovers, video game developers, vegans, bitcoin investors, conspiracy theorists, journalists, religious groups, and political constituencies. Surprisingly, we also found that 10% of the preprints analyzed have sizable (>5%) audience sectors that are associated with right-wing white nationalist communities. Although none of these preprints appear to intentionally espouse any right-wing extremist messages, cases exist in which extremist appropriation comprises more than 50% of the tweets referencing a given preprint. These results present unique opportunities for improving and contextualizing the public discourse surrounding scientific research.

Junseok Park, Seongkuk Park, Kwangmin Kim, Doheon Lee

We present a healthcare remedy evaluation system, called CORUS, using blockchain-based crowdsourcing on a cloud computing platform. Efficacy of healthcare remedies such as functional foods and dietary supplements usually spreads by subjective word of mouth. Though regular clinical trials could be employed, it requires significant cost in time and budget. We expect crowdsourcing can be an effective and efficient alternative to the costly clinical trials to achieve objective evaluation on healthcare remedies. The blockchain technology can alleviate the problem of information quality in most of crowdsourcing systems. Properly designed reward distribution schemes can motivate voluntary participants to provide with credible information. The distributed replication of blockchains can increase the information credibility by prohibiting malicious forgery. We also utilize the Amazon cloud system to enhance availability and scalability. To our knowledge, CORUS is the first system to utilize crowdsourcing, blockchains, and cloud computing for healthcare remedy evaluation. It is available at https://corus.kaist.edu.

Courtney Morris

The vision for ARTiFACTS sprang from the realization that distributed ledger technology/blockchain technology could be applied directly to scholarly communications. Blockchain fits our current system of citation currency. As Eugene Garfield said decades ago, “The Mertonian description of normal science describes citations as the currency of science. Scientists make payments, in the form of citations, to their preceptors”. To work properly, scientists must be able to create, claim ownership, share novel works, and assign proper attribution to prior work at all phases of their research. However, the existing process of disseminating research and scientific discoveries is skewed towards published articles. Communication, sharing, and the ability to give or receive attribution are delayed far downstream - oftentimes several years – from the actual time when discoveries are made and formally communicated. Distributed ledger technology can deliver transformative value and efficiency in facilitating real-time sharing of the outputs of each step of the research process while providing comprehensive and immutable, break-proof attribution and linking for all relevant research artifacts. Ultimately, this technology will empower the scientific and scholarly communities to affect positive change. This paper briefly discusses some of the early learnings from their recent introduction of the ARTiFACTS system.

Howard I. Browman

The ICES Journal of Marine Science has been published continuously since 1903, albeit under several different names, making it one of the oldest marine science journals (Anderson, 2012). The Journal has had a series of accomplished Editors-in-Chief (EiC). I have held that role since 2012 (Browman, 2012), and will continue for a second 5-year term, through 2021. My purpose here is to recount how the Journal has developed during my first term as EiC, and to lay out where we are headed in the next 5 years. I am very proud of what has been achieved for the Journal during the past 5 years. This includes: expanding the topical depth and range of Editors and of content so that they match the ICES strategic plan and track ICES strategic initiatives as well as developments and hot topics in marine and fisheries science; launching the Quo Vadimus article type; increasing the number of Food for Thought articles in order to stimulate debate; launching the “luminaries” series of autobiographical essays; growing article submissions from 350 to >600 per year (and from more countries) while at the same time achieving very competitive article handling times; increasing the profile of/interest in the Journal (as reflected by a huge increase in PDF downloads); and taking the Journal’s competitive position to its highest level ever, with a 2015 Journal Impact Factor that exceeds that of many of its closest competitors, including Marine Ecology Progress Series, for the first time ever. At the same time, and while recognizing that there is always room for improvement, we have put an emphasis on earning credibility and respect for the Journal by striving to be service-oriented, ethical, fair, transparent, accountable, accessible, responsive, fast, efficient, decisive, diplomatic, constructive, consistent, merit-based, and humble (including admitting to being fallible). In that context, the Journal has been publishing what our Editors see as high-quality articles that are original, of broad interest, and which contribute to our knowledge and understanding of the sea. The Journal currently distributes about 65% of submitted articles for review and the overall acceptance rate is 37%. The Editorial Board will continue to work towards publishing only science of the highest quality and interest. Authors interested in submitting articles to the Journal should consult the document, “How to get published in the ICES JMS”. Since efficient, effective and fast handling of articles is critical in today’s competitive scientific publishing environment, the Editorial Board and Editorial Office have worked hard to achieve decision times of <40 days from submission. Oxford University Press (OUP), The Journal’s publisher, offers “online first”, so articles appear online as soon as the proofs have been approved by the author, with their final digital object identifier. The average time between final acceptance and online publication is about 5 weeks. Our goal is to offer authors an industry-leading standard of turn-around times, presentation, and accessibility. With respect to the latter, all articles published in the Journal are made freely available after only 1 year. The Journal holds a strong position with its core community. That strength will be maintained and leveraged to further expand the Journal’s reach. We strive to make the Journal an obvious and preferred choice for authors, including those outside what may still be seen as the ICES core community. This includes making greater inroads with the biological oceanography and marine ecology communities, as well as the socioecological systems and human dimensions communities, among others, in both the University and Institute sectors. The Editorial Board will further expand to track these developments, as well as to reflect the evolution of marine and fisheries science. The Journal will continue to actively “stake a claim” to emerging subject areas. This is manifested in the following list of initiatives – ICES-sponsored Symposia, supplemental issues, and article theme sets - underway and planned. Beyond connectivity (2017) Operationalizing and implementing the ecosystem approach (2017) Towards a broader perspective on ocean acidification research—part 2 (2017) Targets and limits for long term fisheries management (2017) Marine socio-ecological systems (2017) Sixth zooplankton production symposium (2017) Biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (2018) Challenges of managing the globalisation of fisheries (2018) Ecosystem studies of subarctic and Arctic seas (2018) Marine protected areas—point/counter-point (2018) Bioinvasion trajectories (2019) Fourth Symposium on climate change and impacts on the world’s oceans (2019) Sustainable use of Baltic Sea resources (2019) The essay series by luminaries in the fisheries and marine science community already includes contributions from Brian Rothschild, Emory Anderson, Ken Sherman, Daniel Pauly, Ken Able, and Ray Hilborn. Essays by Kevern Cochrane and Marc Mangel are forthcoming, and more will follow. I close with words drawn from Emory Anderson's history of the Journal (Anderson, 2012): “The ICES Journal of Marine Science enjoys a rich heritage and owes its present high stature in the world of marine science to many individuals, be they authors, reviewers, Editors, publishers, or ICES staff. All can claim a share of the credit for the manifold jobs well done”. H.I.B’s editorial work for the ICES Journal of Marine Science is supported by the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, Project no. 83741 (“Scientific publishing and editing”).

David Ozonoff, Philippe Grandjean

Environmental Health has just received its first Impact Factor by Thomson ISI. At a level of 2.48, this achievement is quite satisfactory and places Environmental Health in the top 25% of environmental science journals. When the journal was launched in 2002, it was still unclear whether the Open Access publishing model could be made into a viable commercial enterprise within the biomedical field. During the past eight years, Open Access journals have become widely available, although still covering only about 15% of journal titles. Major funding agencies and institutions, including prominent US universities, now require that researchers publish in Open Access journals. Because of the profound role of scientific journals for the sharing of results and communication between researchers, the advent of Open Access may be of as much significance as the transition from handwriting to printing via moveable type. As Environmental Health is an electronic Open Access journal, the numbers of downloads at the journal website can be retrieved. The top-20 list of articles most frequently accessed shows that all of them have been downloaded over 10,000 times. Back in 2002, the first article published was accessed only 49 times during the following month. A year later, the server had over 1,000 downloads per month, and now the total number of monthly downloads approaches 50,000. These statistics complement the Impact Factor and confirm the viability of Open Access in our field of research. The advent of digital media and its decentralized mode of distribution - the internet - have dramatically changed the control and financing of scientific information dissemination, while facilitating peer review, accelerating editorial handling, and supporting much needed transparency. Both the meaning and means of "having an impact" are therefore changing, as will the degree and way in which scientific journals remain "factors" in that impact.