The advent of information technology offers us, for the first time in history, the potential to transform into a global society, one in which we can actively interact with each other, thereby seeking, sharing and generating knowledge with the aim to better understand ourselves and the world we live in.

At the core of this amazing evolution is the maturation of research paradigms. Knowledge is generated continuously in hundreds of thousands academies of arts and science, laboratories and research centers worldwide. This wisdom enriches our quality of life through a host of new products and services, with advances such as new medical interventions and new art media. And it is building humankind's knowledge base at an exponentially increasing rate.

Science, like art, is not a private endeavor of individual explorers. Science is the product of an investment by society; its fruit should thus serve society universally and in a transparent fashion.

Traditionally, the main vehicle for transferring high-quality, reliable academic knowledge has been the scholarly journal. Until the late 20th century, the traditional model was good value for the service it provided: in exchange for copyright, the publisher placed a copy of the author;s work in the world;s major research libraries. Then came a series of transforming events: subscription costs exploding, the packaging of article content into electronic "bundles", the rise of the open-access movement...; In the context of the Internet and other more recent IT developments, the scientific journal finds itself confronted with an existential crisis.

A transition to electronic publishing is almost complete, yet much of the older structure remains in place: the refereeing system is slow and opaque; the choice of the best work is often biased to already well-established research groups, mostly in first-world countries; and the scientific results are not fully transparent to the general public. Indeed, more than 90% of all journals charge significant subscription fees, and scientists often still pay large sums to publish their papers. Which institutions can afford to subscribe to even a fraction of the 24,000 scientific journals that exist today? What is the impact of such restrictions on developing countries? Open-access journals are beginning to flourish, but they carry the vestiges of the 20th century model of scientific publishing that fail to harness the power of the new internet technologies.

The vision of the Frontiers Research Foundation is to dramatically improve the process of seeking, sharing and generating knowledge. The Frontiers Journal Series will cover all fields of research, starting with Neuroscience. Revolutionary internet technology will efficiently manage and disseminate newly submitted research papers, automatically and interactively choosing expert reviewers from a group of top researchers. These reviewers will interact on-line with the author, ensuring that the work is solid and profound, but they will also actively help to bring the work to perfection. All research endeavors will therefore become a communal endeavor - researchers and knowledge creators working with, and for, other researchers, and for the good of the general public and society in general.

The first role of Frontiers is to validate and publish a competent piece of scientific research. When an article is accepted for publication in the Frontiers program, it will undergo high-quality copy editing, graphics enhancement, link and informatics-editing, and will then be published online, freely accessible to everybody. All readers then play their role in the next stage of the process, because interest translates into impact in the Frontiers collective ranking for each article. Through the Frontiers tiers mechanism, the most esteemed papers will be progressively transformed into publications the general public can appreciate, with non-technical language and eye-opening graphics.


Frontiers has developed a business model to ensure the long-term stability of the program. The main points of the model include affordable author fees; some income from hardcopy subscriptions; industrial sponsorship in the form of direct author subsidies; fees for certain deluxe services (such as translation); and cost control through technology. Frontiers is a journal series, by scientists and for scientists, and will use any profits to reward the scientific community in the form of prizes to authors and editors. To address the many ethical and practical issues that will arise during its activity, Frontiers will form strategic, scientific, social and ethical committees to serve as advisors to the Frontiers Research Foundation, the not-for-profit foundation, based in Switzerland, with the mandate to oversee these activities.


Finally, Frontiers will work to bridge the gap among researchers of different "cultures" (science, arts, humanities). Ultimately it is our goal to not only to make knowledge more readily available, but also to actively enhance creativity through improved communication among workers in different disciplines.

Frontiers strives for the unique human mind to have the best possible access and the deepest possible understanding of the great changes that knowledge creation can provide, and society will undergo, in the 21st century.