First Annual United Scientific Group Editors Association (USGEA) Meeting

The first annual USGEA meeting was held on July 7, 2015 at San Francisco, USA and the meeting was chaired by Prof. Sayon Roy (Vice President -USGEA) in the esteemed presence of the President (Kenneth Blum, PhD, DHL) and its founding members (Ahmad Salehi, MD, PhD; Rajendra Badgaiyan, MD; Mun Yhung Jung, PhD; Jin Jun Luo, MD, PhD; Dawei Li, PhD; Claudio Ando Nicolini, PhD; Reza Hakkak, PhD; Anil K Mandal, MB, BS).

The discussion points and the resolutions taken are as under:

• Review of the individual journals’ progress.
• Indexing, special issues, and possible new editorial board members.
• Modification and additions to existing editorial policies.

All the resolutions put forward by the members were adopted, in particular:

• PLUS Model [Public License of Unrestricted Science] in which the articles accepted will be reflected as latest articles and at the end of the year will be posted in per volume per issue model. This is contrary to the conventional current issue model system in which the articles per issue either quarterly / half-yearly are released.
• Values and goals were framed which should be reflected in journal webpage.
• H-index of authors: For any article submission to USG journals the preliminary criteria to evaluate research profile of the author(s) is by calculating the authors H-index.
• Editorial board formation by location and area of expertise.
• Manuscripts by editors per Issue.

About USGEA  

USGEA is an association of United Scientific Group Journals editors with diverse backgrounds and professional experience, who seek to foster cooperation and communication among editors, improve editorial standards, promotes the concept of self-criticism, self-regulation in scholarly publishing, and encourage research on the editorial principles and practices of publishing.

USGEA purpose is to serve the scientific community upholding standards of peer review, editorial independence and other editorial policies.

The main objectives of association is to:

• Create journals having a clear mission and well developed publishing policies.
• Abide the industry standards and follow the trends in the rapidly-changing environment of scientific publishing.
• Develop challenging themes and to organize customized scientific events.

Responsibilities includes: Providing strategic directions to the publishing house, overseeing activities and progress. Focused inputs in developing peer review guidelines and editorial policy statements. Addressing the significant issues arise from the in-house editors, reviewers, authors and readers. Resolving the professional problems related to scientific meetings and forums.