About Plant Innovation

Plant Innovation

Plant Innovation is an English-language, open-access journal published in Beijing by KeAi Communications and sponsored by the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is dedicated to serving the global plant science community by providing a high-quality open-access publishing platform, and it publishes peer-reviewed articles reporting original and novel discoveries in all fields of plant biology. In a publishing landscape where plant science is divided among journals of genetics, physiology, agronomy and biotechnology, Plant Innovation is deliberately generalist: it takes the whole of plant biology as its territory, anchored by one of China's leading plant research institutes, and it competes on openness, editorial expertise and speed, explicitly welcoming fast-track papers and presubmission enquiries alongside its regular submissions.

Sponsored by the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology

The journal states plainly that it is a publication sponsored by the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing. Sponsorship matters for a new journal's identity: it ties Plant Innovation to an institute whose own research covers the genetic control of growth and development, gene expression, signal transduction, structural and functional genomics, biotechnology, molecular breeding, bioinformatics and systems biology, using both plant and animal models. The journal's editor-in-chief and co-editor-in-chief are both IGDB scientists, its editorial office is staffed from the institute, and several of its editors are IGDB researchers. At the same time, the journal is not a house organ: its editorial board extends across Chinese agricultural universities and academies and to institutions in Saudi Arabia, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, and its stated audience is the global plant science community.

The sponsor institute and its history

IGDB was founded in 2001 through a merger of three Chinese Academy of Sciences institutes: the Institute of Genetics, founded in 1959; the Institute of Developmental Biology, founded in 1980; and the Shijiazhuang Institute of Agricultural Modernization, founded in 1978. Its headquarters are at No. 1 West Beichen Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing. The institute's research organisation reflects the breadth the journal claims: its units have included research centres for genome biology, molecular agrobiology, developmental biology, molecular systems biology and agro-resources, together with national-level laboratories devoted to plant genomics and to plant cell and chromosome engineering, and the National Plant Gene Research Center in Beijing is affiliated with it. The institute aims to develop key technologies for modern agriculture and population health, and its researchers have made recognised contributions to crop productivity and quality, water-saving agriculture and molecular breeding, including the breeding of new wheat, rice, soybean and maize cultivars. A journal sponsored by such an institute inherits both a research network and a mission: fundamental plant biology pursued with agricultural application in view.

Scope across all fields of plant biology

Plant Innovation publishes peer-reviewed articles of original and novel discoveries in all fields of plant biology, including, but not limited to, genetics, genomics, molecular and cellular biology, physiology, biochemistry, development, metabolism, evolution, biotechnology, and breeding of plants and crops. The list is worth reading as a map of the discipline. It begins with the hereditary core of plant science — genetics and genomics — passes through the molecular and cellular machinery of the plant, rises to whole-plant physiology, biochemistry and metabolism, adds development and evolution as the temporal dimensions of plant life, and ends where plant biology meets society: biotechnology and the breeding of plants and crops. Few plant journals claim the entire arc from gene to field in a single scope statement. The journal reinforces the breadth by also publishing reviews and opinion articles on recent cutting-edge studies and advances, so that synthesis and debate have a place alongside primary discoveries.

Genetics, genomics and molecular biology

The first cluster of the scope — genetics, genomics, molecular and cellular biology — reflects the sponsor institute's historic strengths in plant gene research. Work in this area asks how plant genomes are organised, how genes are expressed and regulated, and how molecular signals inside cells control growth and responses to the environment. The editorial board is heavily weighted towards this cluster: its members include specialists from IGDB itself, the Institute of Botany and the Institute of Crop Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, Tsinghua University and China Agricultural University, as well as international figures such as Andrew H. Paterson of the University of Georgia and David Seung of the John Innes Centre in Norwich. For authors, that composition signals that genome-level and molecule-level submissions will be handled by editors who work in those fields themselves, an important consideration for a young journal seeking credible submissions in competitive areas of plant science.

Physiology, development, metabolism and evolution

The second cluster of the scope covers physiology, biochemistry, development, metabolism and evolution — the biology of the whole plant across its life and across evolutionary time. Development connects directly to the sponsor's name and mission: IGDB was formed partly from an Institute of Developmental Biology, and the genetic control of growth and development remains central to its research. Plant development — how a seed becomes a plant with roots, shoots, leaves and flowers — is governed by signalling and gene regulation, but it is expressed in physiology and metabolism, in how plants capture light, move water, build tissues and respond to stress. Evolution places those processes in deep time, explaining how plant diversity arose. By holding these subjects in the same journal as genomics, Plant Innovation can publish the kind of integrative work its scope promises, in which a gene discovery is followed through to its developmental, metabolic or evolutionary consequence.

Biotechnology and breeding of plants and crops

The final element of the scope — biotechnology and the breeding of plants and crops — gives the journal its applied edge. IGDB's record includes molecular breeding programmes and dozens of new cultivars of major crops, and the institute has cooperated with local partners to establish high-tech breeding centres for rice, wheat, cotton and vegetables. Plant Innovation's editors likewise include leading crop scientists, among them researchers from China Agricultural University, Sichuan Agricultural University, Huazhong Agricultural University and the China National Rice Research Institute. A journal that publishes both the discovery of a gene and its use in a breeding programme shortens the distance between laboratory and field, and it offers authors working on crop improvement a venue where the underlying biology and the application are both in scope, rather than one being treated as background to the other.

Reviews, opinion, fast-track papers and presubmission enquiry

Beyond original research articles, Plant Innovation publishes reviews and opinion articles on recent cutting-edge studies and advances. It also states that it welcomes fast-track papers and presubmission enquiry. Those two offers shape the journal's character. A presubmission enquiry lets authors test whether a manuscript fits the journal before preparing a full submission, saving time on both sides; a fast-track route signals that the journal is willing to move quickly on discoveries it judges urgent or especially significant. For a new open-access title competing for strong manuscripts against long-established plant journals, editorial speed and accessibility are practical advantages, and Plant Innovation advertises them as part of its service to the global plant science community rather than as exceptions to its normal process.

Editorial leadership and board

The editor-in-chief of Plant Innovation is Xiangdong Fu of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, and the co-editor-in-chief is Jianru Zuo of the same institute. They are supported by a large editorial board whose Chinese membership spans Shandong University, Peking University, Sichuan Agricultural University, Tsinghua University, China Agricultural University, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan University, Lanzhou University, Zhejiang University, Nanjing Agricultural University and institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, among many others. International members include Monika Chodasiewicz of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, Emilio Gutierrez-Beltran of the University of Seville and Carlos Guzmán of the University of Córdoba in Spain, Panagiotis N. Moschou of the University of Crete, Charles J. Underwood of Radboud University, Shuai Huang of Ohio State University and Andrew H. Paterson of the University of Georgia. The editorial office — Xiaoxuan Guo, Yuan Qin, Xiufen Song, Xin Yu and Jing Zhao — is based at IGDB in Beijing.

Open-access publishing through KeAi

Plant Innovation is published through KeAi Communications in Beijing, the open-access joint venture co-founded by China Science Publishing & Media and Elsevier. Since it was repurposed as an open-access journal publishing service provider in 2013, KeAi has developed a portfolio of more than 280 scholarly journals across all scientific disciplines, and it provides its partner journals with publishing and technology capabilities drawn from its parent companies, including ScienceDirect hosting and established editorial systems. For Plant Innovation, that arrangement combines institute sponsorship and editorial control in Beijing with international open-access dissemination: articles are free for readers everywhere immediately on publication, which suits a journal whose subject — the biology of the plants that feed the world — has a readership extending well beyond subscribing university libraries, to breeding stations, agricultural institutes and researchers in regions where crop science matters most.

Readership and significance

Plant Innovation addresses the global plant science community: molecular biologists and geneticists, physiologists and biochemists, developmental and evolutionary biologists, biotechnologists and plant breeders. Its significance lies in the combination it offers — the full breadth of plant biology in one open-access venue, sponsored by an institute created in 2001 from three predecessor institutes with roots reaching back to 1959, edited by working plant scientists in Beijing, and distributed through KeAi's international platform. Whether a discovery concerns the genomics of a crop, the cellular biology of a model plant, the metabolism of a stressed field plant or the breeding of a better cultivar, the journal's scope is written to contain it, and its stated welcome for reviews, opinion, fast-track papers and presubmission enquiries shows a new journal actively inviting the community it intends to serve.