About the Journal
Focus and Scope
EJT is a fully refereed, international, fully electronic Open Access journal in descriptive taxonomy, covering subjects in zoology (including entomology), botany (in its broadest sense), and palaeontology. EJT-papers must be original and adhere to high scientific (content) and technical (language, artwork, etc.) standards. Manuscripts that are clearly substandard in either of these categories will not be sent out for review. EJT is supported by a consortium of European Natural History Institutes, but its scope is global. Both authorship and geographical region of study need not be European. Authors are, however, strongly encouraged to involve also European Natural History Institutes by consulting material from their collections.
Open Access and Copyright
EJT provides immediate free open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports and encourages a greater global exchange of knowledge. The journal is owned by the EJT consortium, which finances the copy-editing, layout and online publication of the papers. Taxonomists publish their results in EJT without paying any fees or charges. Readers access the content for free.
To know more about our business model, you can download our first editorial.
To get information about our copyright policy, click here.
Indexing
Taxa published in EJT
are recorded in:
Plazi TreatmentBank
GBIF
ZooBank
International Plant names Index (IPNI)
Zoological Record
EJT is indexed in:
Web of Science
DOAJ
Google Scholar
Virtual Library of Biology (Vifabio)
Science Citation Index Expanded (Entomology | Zoology | Plant Sciences)
Journal Citation Reports (Agriculture, Biology, and Environmental Sciences|Biological Abstracts|BIOSIS Previews |Essential Science Indicators |Zoological Record)
Scimago Journal & Country Rank
Editorial Policies
Our editorial policies are detailed in this section, including the self-archiving policy, publication ethics and guidelines for reviewers.
Submission Policies
Authors can submit their manuscripts via NESTOR.
Before submission, please read carefully the Author Guidelines, as well as the FAIR & Open Science Principles that will help you to format your manuscript.
Journal Archiving
This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.
Journal Sponsorship
EJT is published and funded by a consortium of European natural history institutions (NHIs).
Five NHIs founded the European Journal of Taxonomy:
National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France; www.mnhn.fr
Meise Botanic Garden, Meise, Belgium; www.plantentuinmeise.be
Royal Museum for Central Africa,Tervuren, Belgium; www.africamuseum.be
Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom (member 2011-2018); www.nhm.ac.uk
Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium; www.naturalsciences.be
A sixth institution joined the EJT consortium on September 12th, 2011:
Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark; snm.ku.dk
On May 2nd, 2016, the EJT consortium welcomed a seventh institution :
Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands; www.naturalis.nl
On April 24th, 2017, the EJT consortium welcomed two new members:
Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Spain; www.mncn.csic.es
Real Jardín Botánico, Madrid, Spain; www.rjb.csic.es/jardinbotanico/jardin/
On April 24th, 2018, the consortium unanimously accepted the application of a new member:
Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, Bonn, Germany; https://leibniz-lib.de/
On May 14th, 2019, the EJT consortium welcomed a new member:
National Museum of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic; www.nm.cz
On November 27th, 2023, the EJT consortium welcomed a new member:
The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel Aviv, Israël; https://smnh.tau.ac.il/en/
The EJT consortium currently includes 10 members representing 8 European countries.
Natural history institutions are welcomed to apply for membership of the EJT consortium if they share the following principles:
- descriptive taxonomic research is essential to safeguard our planet’s biodiversity, and remains one of the core missions of natural history institutions and their staff;
- dissemination of original research, as well as the ability to use and reuse data as freely as possible, is the key to innovation and further advancement of science;
- publishing is part of the research process, and natural history institutions should be able to preserve their in-house publishing expertise;
- scholarly publications should be made accessible to all, at no charge
Journal History
The European Journal of Taxonomy was initiated by a task force of six people from the EDIT (European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy) network who worked together from June 2009 to September 2011 to propose a joint journal that would solve some of the issues identified in shifting from paper to e-only publishing for institutional journals in taxonomy. The task force was given a mandate by the EDIT directors to investigate the need for and feasibility of launching such a joint e-journal. After their investigation, the task force presented a business model involving natural history institutions (NHIs). These NHIs offer their financial support and/or their in-kind support (skilled publishing staff, IT staff), which provides autonomy for the journal. After a proofing period of the publishing model, workflow model and editorial team organisation, the first article was published on September 9th 2011.
In October 2015, the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) and EJT consortium agreed on the official endorsement of the journal by the CETAF.
Merged titles
The following journals have been merged into the European Journal of Taxonomy:
Journal of Afrotropical Zoology www.africamuseum.be
Bulletin de l'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique - Entomologie / Bulletin van het Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen - Entomologie www.naturalsciences.be
Bulletin de l'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique - Biologie / Bulletin van het Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen - Biologie www.naturalsciences.be
Bulletin de l'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique - Sciences de la Terre / Bulletin van het Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen - Aardwetenschappen www.naturalsciences.be
Steenstrupia zoologi.snm.ku.dk/english/publications/steenstrupia/
Zoologische Mededelingen http://www.zoologischemededelingen.nl/
