Journals not only disseminate information, they also provide a mechanism of quality control and certification for the results published. Species names and descriptions are the primary metrics in quantifying biodiversity, including communicating information about food and agriculture, ecologically important species, pests, and pathogens, and species of popular and conservation interest. For taxonomy, the close link between publication and research is even more crucial, as publications are the legal document validating the names of organisms.

Moving online increases accessibility to taxonomic information and ensures the long-term preservation through electronic archiving. However, this is a mission that requires public sector commitment and funding. Initiated under the umbrella of the European Distributed Institute for Taxonomy (EDIT), the European Journal of Taxonomy (EJT) is an example of institutions adapting to modern technologies so as to better fulfil their public mission.

Launched in September 2011, EJT is jointly published by a consortium of European natural History Institutes (NHI), namely those of Paris, London, Brussels, Meise, Tervuren, and Copenhagen, who have pooled their resources to publish an international, fully electronic, fast-track, peer-reviewed, non-for-profit and fully open access journal in descriptive taxonomy, covering subjects in zoology, entomology, botany (including mycology and algology), and palaeontology. There are no size limits to articles. EJT’s scope is global; authorship and geographical region of study are not exclusively European.

EJT supports the need to deposit type specimens in public collections (e.g. museums, herbaria). This policy anchors the title in a collection-based research environment.

The journal builds on the three main principles: high scientific quality, electronic and permanent Open Access archives; no financial costs to authors or readers.

The creation of this journal sends a strong political message to national and international funders of natural history research, showing the interest and capacity of NHIs in different countries to join forces and collectively claim a significant role in the organization of access to and dissemination of scientific information in their domain of research. By publishing their own joint journal, the institutions will be able to set conditions of access to the publicly funded research they perform.

Run by an editorial and a production team scattered throughout the NHIs that own and fund the title, EJT builds a European cross-institutional cooperation through light governance, enhancing coordination, establishing a cross-institutional strategy at the European level. EJT is designed to encourage and promote networking between publishing staff in NHIs and the biodiversity production and user community.

By addressing the current barriers for e-publishing, EJT aims at helping institutional journals within NHIs to movetheir publications to the Web efficiently and thus spread their scientific results more broadly and increase their citability and accessibility.

EJT’s team particularly welcomes pro-iBiosphere project and shares its main objectives: to enhance interoperability through coordination and promote the adoption of technological standards which are the only way to facilitate the access, dissemination, and use of scholarly publications in the fields of environmental and natural history.

We warmly invite you to explore the possibilities of publishing in EJT today, just click to www.europeanjournaloftaxonomy.eu

Laurence Bénichou
Responsable d'éditions/Publications manager Publications scientifiques du Muséum & European Journal of Taxonomy