Few of us in publishing could announce the launch of a major new journal without either a name or an editor, but this is what three leading funding organizations have done. The Wellcome Trust, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Max Planck Institute made this announcement of their intention to launch a top tier, open access journal for the biomedical sciences.
This new journal will face a host of established and new competition, not least from PLoS One which saw an increase again this year in its impact factor. Of course the supporting organizations are likely to get a lot of support from the scientific community but it is interesting to see that the newly appointed Editor will be tasked with developing the long term business plan. Definitely one to watch.
