Welcome to volume 6 of Future Science OA

Abstract

Welcome to the first issue of volume 6 from Future Science OA! In this Foreword, I will take a look over both the highlights of 2019 in Future Science OA and what we can expect from 2020. The year of 2019 was a fantastic year for the journal, with it becoming indexed on Scopus and seeing an average of 38,000 full-text readers a month across our approximately 450 publications. Those readers come to access great research and we published some really interesting articles in 2019 from a wide range of topics. My personal highlight was an article entitled “‘Academic periodization’: using approaches from elite sport to benefit early career academics” by J Gonzalez and K Deighton [1]. This article was part of a special issue focused on early career researchers and discussed how periodization – a method used by athletes to maximize performance while minimizing risk of overtraining and injury – can be applied to early career researchers. This article formed part of an excellent issue guest edited by L Heaney (Loughborough University, UK), one of our panel of Young Ambassadors, and is well worth a read for any researcher looking to advance their career without burning out [2]. Another fantastic article was a review entitled “Bromodomain and extra-terminal motif inhibitors: a review of preclinical and clinical advances in cancer therapy” by Alqahtani et al [3]. This is our second most-read article from 2019 (after [1]) and makes for a fascinating read. These articles are by no means my only highlights from this year – it is hard to pick from the over 70 new research, review and opinion pieces we have published this year, as well as the novel methodologies and data notes! We also supported the third iteration of the Future Science Early Career Research Award, which has been renamed the Future Science Future Star Award. This year, M Pizarro-Guajardo (Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile) won, following stiff competition from 28 candidates [4]. She will be guest editing a special issue of Future Science OA, which will be published in 2020. In the meantime, you can find out more about her fantastic career so far in our winner’s podcast [5]. This year also saw the publication of a research article from last year’s winner, V Mucci [6]. Mucci’s study examined the physiological changes that occur during pregnancy for patients with Mal de Debarquement syndrome. We are delighted with how winning the award has increased visibility of research into this rare neurological disorder.