Collaborate and grow your network
Research Topics link experts together. Working with peers across disciplines and institutions will help you find your community and expand your network, providing exciting opportunities for knowledge exchange.
Research Topics
Frontiers’ Research Topics provide an open, collaborative publishing space focused on an emerging theme.
Defined and led by expert researchers, they bring together communities to write, review, and publish new research around a shared interest – sparking conversation and stimulating future collaboration.
Designed for impact, a Research Topic is highly cited and widely read by researchers worldwide.
Frontiers' Research Topics provide scientists with a platform to:
investigate critical research questions from different perspectives
address emerging issues swiftly with colleagues in their research community
explore game-changing ideas and approaches across disciplines.
A topic editor suggests and leads their Research Topic. They invite other researchers to join the community, contributing as authors and peer reviewers. The topic editor oversees peer review, ensuring only the highest quality research is published.
What are the benefits of Research Topics?
Whether you are looking to guest edit your own Research Topic or browse open Research Topics to find the perfect home for your research, there are many benefits of getting involved. Here are just a few.
Increase the visibility of your research
Research Topics are highly discoverable because they can be linked from multiple Frontiers journals.
Make a bigger impact in your field
Articles published in a Research Topic receive more citations than stand-alone articles on average. You can track the impact of your own research with our advanced impact metrics.
What is it like to host a Research Topic?
After successfully proposing a Research Topic, as topic editor you take the lead on all editorial decisions - from defining the scope of your topic and choosing a team of co-editors, to overseeing peer review so only the best quality research is published.
You set the timeline for your collection and we'll work with you at your pace.
As a guest editor, you’ll be able to:
lead, nurture, and guide a newly emerging research community
grow your network and collaborate with fellow experts around the world
gain valuable editorial experience and learn from other researchers
track your impact in real-time with advanced metrics
increase the visibility and readership of your work with the possibility of a freely shareable ebook.
Guest editor criteria
To be a topic editor, you will need:
a PhD or MD degree
at least three years of postdoctoral experience
a significant and relevant publication record
previous editorial experience.
More support
Managing a Research Topic is simple with our innovative technology and professional support team. We'll support you through every step of the process, from defining your topic and inviting contributors to promoting your topic and tracking impact.
Publishing your article within a Research Topic is a great opportunity to work with your peers and senior researchers within a collaborative research environment, providing a range of perspectives on the same topic.
You’d benefit from:
retaining copyright for your article via a CC-BY license
accessing article level metrics to track your article’s impact
getting editors’ and reviewers’ public endorsement of your published paper
rapid publication as soon as your article is accepted. In 2024 our average review time was under 100 days.