The new journal will be led by Professor Olinga Ta’eed, Director, Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance (CCEG), and Dr Christopher Clack, financial computing expert and founder of the Thomson Reuters laboratory, University College London

— By Ruth Miller and Sarah Yardley

A new collaboration between Frontiers and the Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance (CCEG) Think Tank will make cutting-edge research on blockchain technologies freely available through an open-access online platform. Led by founding chief editors Professor Olinga Ta’eed, director of the CCEG, and Dr. Christopher Clack, financial computing expert and founder of the Thomson Reuters laboratory at University College London, the new Frontiers in Blockchain journal will publish peer-reviewed research on a range of topics — from cryptocurrencies for social justice to smart contracts.

Invented in 2008 for use in bitcoin, blockchain allows online transactions to be recorded in a verified and permanent way. Research on blockchain-inspired technologies has grown exponentially in recent years, alongside rapid development of blockchain applications and use within an ever-diversifying range of sectors worldwide.

As Professor Ta’eed explains, “Blockchain is the movement of digital value from A to B. Until now, the focus has been on the transaction of tangible value — namely bitcoin and application to hard assets. However, the technology can also be used in other ways.”

“For example, with the rapid research in digitizing sentiment, we can not only capture non-financial value but also transact it through blockchain. ‘Tokenization’ of value represents the emergence of a new class of social impact instruments such as cryptocurrencies, with values that appear to have captured the imagination of vibrant, aligned, cohesive, transactable communities worldwide.”

However, the shortage of focused, peer-reviewed publication outlets for blockchain research poses challenges for its validation and quality assurance. Frontiers in Blockchain will provide a much-needed, centralized source of high-quality research, demonstrating the breadth and value of blockchain technologies and their implementations.

Dr Clack asserts, “The Frontiers model of collaborative peer review as an open engagement between author and reviewer will be particularly beneficial to industry researchers as a way to receive expert academic commentary and guidance on their research.”

The journal will welcome research from both academia and industry, creating a synergistic network which facilitates the evolution of the fast-growing and exciting field of blockchain study.

Frontiers in Blockchain will be open for submission in the coming months.

If you are interested in joining the editorial board please contact blockchain@frontiersin.org, and keep up to date with the latest journal news and developments by following the journal Twitter page @FrontBlockchain.

**About Chief Editor Dr Christopher Clack**An internationally recognized computer scientist based at University College London, and recipient of the prestigious Doctor of Science award from the University of Cambridge, Dr Clack brings 34 years of academic experience to Frontiers in Blockchain. He is known for leading change in the interaction between academia and the financial services industry through initiatives in research, knowledge transfer and teaching. He advises and undertakes research with investment banks, financial technology companies, and standards bodies, and founded the UK Government-funded Financial Services Knowledge Transfer Network, established to identify business challenges to inform academic research and to encourage partnerships between the two sectors.

About Chief Editor Professor Olinga Ta’eedWith an impressive background in business, financial industries and social activism, Professor Ta’eed’s extensive experience and insights into industry and the applications of blockchain technologies led to the founding of The Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance. His other ventures include the development of the Social Earnings Ratio, the world’s most rapidly adopted impact metric to digitally capture intangible value. He is now developing revolutionary “alt coins” — including Women’s Coin, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals Coin — that transact this value using blockchain. He is chairman of Seratio Ltd and founder of the IoV Blockchain Alliance for Good, and Rothbadi & Co, a large institutional blockchain consultancy.

About the Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and GovernanceThe CCEG is an independent, not-for-profit organization established as a research hub and policy institute for the investigation of social value aiming to promote sustainable social development through the implementation of non-financial measures of value.

About FrontiersFrontiers is an award-winning Open Science platform and leading open-access scholarly publisher. Our mission is to make high-quality, peer-reviewed research articles rapidly and freely available to everybody in the world, thereby accelerating scientific and technological innovation, societal progress and economic growth. Frontiers received the 2014 ALPSP Gold Award for Innovation in Publishing.