About Originality

Originality

Originality is an international, peer-reviewed, fully open-access journal published by KeAi Communications in Beijing, with Elsevier publishing services, and co-owned by the University of Science and Technology Beijing, Peking University and the China Rural Special Technology Association. Its editorial office is at the University of Science and Technology Beijing, and its Editor-in-Chief is Professor Xiangyuan Wan. Rather than belonging to a single discipline, the journal was created as a broad-scope home for original research across the sciences, and its very name states the test it applies to submissions: work is evaluated for its originality, significance, methodological rigour and the impact of its findings.

Ownership and publishing model

The ownership structure of Originality is unusual and deliberate. Three owners share the journal: the University of Science and Technology Beijing, which hosts the editorial office and retains copyright of the overall compiled journal and compiled issues; Peking University, one of China's best-known comprehensive universities; and the China Rural Special Technology Association, which connects the journal to applied and rural technology communities. KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. and the journal's editorial office are granted non-exclusive publishing and distribution rights. KeAi is a Beijing-based open-access publisher, and the journal is distributed with Elsevier publishing services, placing a new Chinese-owned title on infrastructure familiar to researchers worldwide. Every article is published open access, so readers anywhere can read, download and share published work without a subscription.

Editorial leadership in Beijing

Peer review at Originality is conducted under the responsibility of the Editorial Office of Originality at the University of Science and Technology Beijing. The Editor-in-Chief is Professor Xiangyuan Wan of that university, whose contact address for the journal is given by the publisher as originality@ustb.edu.cn. Locating the editorial office inside a university, rather than solely inside a publishing house, reflects the journal's design as a community-led title: editorial decisions rest with an academic office accountable to the owning institutions, while KeAi and Elsevier services handle production and global distribution. For authors, that division matters, because questions about scope, review and editorial policy are directed to the Beijing editorial office, while the published journal reaches readers through established international platforms.

A broad, six-domain scope

Originality organises its content into six major domains: Life Sciences; Agriculture and Food Systems; Physical Sciences; Engineering; Earth and Environmental Sciences; and Interdisciplinary Sciences. The publisher describes the journal as spanning those domains and welcoming original research that inspires and leads future scientific innovation in both specialised and interdisciplinary fields. Interdisciplinary work is particularly encouraged, because the journal argues that such work has particular potential to address complex, cross-cutting challenges. That breadth distinguishes Originality from the many new journals launched around a single technique or disease area: instead of asking whether a paper belongs to a narrow field, its editors first ask whether the work is original, significant and rigorous enough to interest readers beyond its home discipline.

Life sciences and agriculture

Within Life Sciences, the journal's stated coverage runs from molecular biology and genetics, cell and developmental biology, neuroscience, immunology and infectious diseases, and physiology and biochemistry to biotechnology and bioengineering, medical and clinical sciences, pharmacology and drug discovery, systems and synthetic biology, and evolutionary biology. The Agriculture and Food Systems domain reflects the presence of the China Rural Special Technology Association among the owners. Its coverage includes crop science and plant biology, soil science and agronomy, animal science and veterinary medicine, agricultural biotechnology, sustainable farming and agroecology, food safety and security, nutrition science, food processing and technology, agricultural economics and policy, and climate-resilient food systems. Together, those two domains connect laboratory biology to the practical questions of feeding populations under climate pressure.

Physical sciences, engineering and earth sciences

The Physical Sciences domain covers theoretical, applied, condensed-matter, quantum and particle physics; organic, inorganic, analytical, physical and theoretical chemistry; materials science and nanotechnology; computational physics and chemistry; optics and photonics; and energy research, including materials for energy and renewable energy sources. Engineering coverage is equally wide: mechanical, electrical and civil engineering, chemical and process engineering, materials engineering, nanotechnology and microfabrication, robotics and automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning in engineering, biomedical engineering, environmental and sustainable engineering, systems and control engineering, and computational modelling and simulation.

Earth and Environmental Sciences addresses geosciences including geology, geophysics and geochemistry; climate science and climate change; atmospheric and ocean sciences; hydrology and water resource management; environmental pollution and remediation; ecology and conservation biology; renewable energy and environmental technology; disaster risk reduction and resilience; remote sensing and GIS applications; and environmental policy and sustainability studies. These listings are the journal's own published scope, and they show a title designed to follow problems — energy, climate, water, food and health — rather than departmental boundaries.

Interdisciplinary science as a stated priority

The sixth domain, Interdisciplinary Sciences, promotes integration across traditional boundaries. The publisher lists convergence research such as bioinformatics and computational biology; data science applied to the physical, life or social sciences; environmental-social systems interfaces; energy-environment-economy linkages; health-environment interactions including One Health and planetary health; artificial intelligence and big data in multidisciplinary contexts; the science-policy interface; complex systems and network science; and the ethical, legal and societal implications of scientific advances. By naming these areas explicitly, Originality signals to authors whose work is often passed between specialist journals that there is a venue where the crossing of boundaries is itself part of the contribution being assessed.

Article types and peer review

Originality accepts a wide range of article types. Its published list includes full-length articles, reviews, short communications, perspectives, case reports, protocols and data articles; the publisher's fuller description also mentions commentaries, editorials, news articles and correspondence. That mix allows the journal to publish not only completed research programmes but also timely viewpoints, reusable methods and datasets that other researchers can build on. All submissions undergo rigorous peer review, which the publisher presents as the mechanism for ensuring the highest standards of academic integrity and clarity. Submissions are evaluated for originality, significance, methodological rigour and impact — criteria repeated across the journal's own descriptions and central to its identity.

Publication schedule and open-access terms

In its first year, Originality publishes quarterly. Its open-access economics are notably author-friendly at launch: article processing charges are waived for submissions received before 1 January 2029, according to the candidate record and the publisher's open-access page, which states that all APCs for articles submitted before that date will be fully waived. A multi-year waiver of that kind lowers the barrier for early-career researchers and for teams without dedicated publication funds, and it gives the journal time to build readership and a submission pipeline before charges apply. Because the journal is fully open access, the waiver benefits readers and authors at once: published articles are free to read immediately, and for the waiver period authors are not charged to make them so.

Why a journal like this matters

Originality arrives in a publishing landscape where Chinese research output has grown rapidly and where KeAi — Elsevier's Beijing-based open-access joint venture with Chinese Science Publishing & Media Ltd — has built a portfolio of more than forty open-access journals across scientific fields, developed in partnership with Chinese research organisations. Within that landscape, a broad-scope, university-co-owned journal offers something different from a society's specialist title: a general platform, rooted in Beijing institutions, that can present Chinese and international research side by side across the full span of the sciences. Its success will be judged over time by the quality of what it publishes, but its structure — academic ownership, an editorial office at the University of Science and Technology Beijing under Professor Xiangyuan Wan, KeAi and Elsevier distribution, quarterly publication and a long introductory APC waiver — is already fully formed and clearly documented by its publisher.

Reading and submitting

Readers can find Originality through KeAi Publishing's journal pages, where its aims, scope, editorial information and open-access terms are set out in English, and where published articles are freely available. Authors considering submission should note the journal's breadth — life sciences, agriculture and food systems, physical sciences, engineering, earth and environmental sciences and interdisciplinary sciences — its encouragement of interdisciplinary work, and its range of article types from full-length research to protocols and data articles. With peer review under the responsibility of its Beijing editorial office and publication quarterly in its first year, Originality is positioned as a new, deliberately generalist voice in open-access science, published from Beijing for an international readership.