A Research Topic is a collaborative hub built around an emerging theme. Defined, managed, and led by renowned researchers, they bring together leading experts around a shared area of interest – stimulating collaboration and accelerating science.
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 guest editor (also called a topic editor) suggests and leads their Research Topic, which fellow researchers contribute to as authors and peer reviewers. The topic editor oversees peer review, ensuring only the highest quality scientific research is published.
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:
Research Topics link experts together. Working with peers across disciplines and institutions will help you expand and strengthen your network, providing exciting opportunities for knowledge exchange.
Research Topics are highly discoverable, with dedicated homepages which can be linked from multiple Frontiers journals. We promote the best topics on social media and other platforms to help boost readership and citations.
Articles published in a Research Topic receive 18% more citations than standalone Frontiers' articles on average. You can track the impact of your own Research Topic or article with Frontiers’ advanced impact metrics.
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.
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.
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: with Research Topic articles, manuscript submission to final decision takes less than 70 days on average.
