Abstract
The first half of 2025 has been a very active and exciting year for the journal. The new metrics for the journal have been released, and we are pleased to report that the journal’s Impact Factor has increased from 1.2 in 2023 to 1.4 in 2024. BIO had seen drops in the IF over the past 2 years, as had approximately 70%–80% of other journals, due to a variety of factors, including a significant influx of manuscripts during the COVID pandemic, as well as changes in the way the IF is calculated. So, this year’s increase in the IF is a welcome change. We are continuing to work diligently to enhance the quality of manuscripts published by the journal by soliciting invited articles on hot topic areas, using targeted marketing approaches to highlight high-impact papers, and extensive outreach at annual and regional meetings of the International Society of Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER). In addition, we are planning an ISBER webinar on September 25, 2025, on how to write a successful article for publication in BIO. Stay tuned for more information!
Last year, BIO saw an increase in submissions from 187 in 2024 compared to 164 in 2023, and we are on track to exceed that number this year. We are continuing to examine the submission, review, acceptance, and pre-publication processes to streamline the time to publication and optimize the author experience. Through these process improvements, we have been able to reduce the median Time to First Decision from 24 days in 2023 to 16 days in 2024.
While authors on papers published in 2024 represented 57 countries, we are continuing our efforts to expand the geographic reach of the journal, both by marketing at regional meetings and expanding the geographic representation on BIO’s Editorial Board. We have also made some changes to our Editorial Board to ensure active participation, as well as to ensure broad representation in necessary expertise. We are delighted to welcome the following new members of the journal’s Editorial Board: Ronny Baber (Germany), Hugo Campos (Brazil), Marcos Castellanos-Uribe (United Kingdom), Francesco Florindi (Belgium), Balwir Matharoo-Ball (United Kingdom), Shannon J. McCall (United States), Ryo Shirakashi (Japan), and Elke Smits (Belgium). The journal’s Editorial Board is critical to the journal’s success by helping to shape the direction of the journal. The Editorial Board members serve as ambassadors for the journal, review manuscripts, suggest reviewers, submit manuscripts, organize special issues and sections, and provide suggestions for how to improve the quality of the journal and its relevance to the field. We thank our Editorial Board members for their invaluable contributions to the journal’s success.
We are excited about several Special Issues/Sections, either recently published or under development, this year. The April 2025 issue of BIO featured a Special Section, “A Window Into Australasian Biobanking,” organized by Guest Editors Cassandra P Griffin, Anusha Hettiaratchi, and Georget Reaiche-Miller. Guest Editors Hugo Campos and Maria Teresa de Davila are organizing a Special Issue, “Biobanks and Biorepositories in Latin America: Challenges and Opportunities.” The response to the Call for Papers was impressive, and some excellent manuscripts have already been accepted, and others are completing the review process. Also, under development by Guest Editors Marianne Henderson and Greg Grossman is a Special Issue entitled, “Biobanking in the Age of Advanced Technologies: Operations, Governance, Ethics, and Community Engagement.” Some excellent manuscripts are under review, including some on the exciting topic of AI in biobanking.
A Call for Papers is still open, entitled, “Modern Approaches to Cancer Biobanking.” Karine Sargsyan, Anna Michalska-Falkowska, and Denis Marino are organizing this Special Issue/Section. Individuals interested in obtaining more information and submitting a article can find more information at https://home.liebertpub.com/cfp/modern-approaches-to-cancer-biobanking/546/.
Other noteworthy changes this year have been the journal’s transition in ownership to Sage Publications, as well as the implementation of the NIH’s new Public Access Policy. In December 2024, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. was acquired by Sage Publications. Sage Publications is a global academic publisher of books, journals, and other library resources. The Mary Ann Liebert brand will continue as an imprint of Sage. The changes that have occurred so far are centered on migrating the journal from Mary Ann Liebert’s systems to those run by Sage (e.g., production, finance, web hosting).
At the end of June 2025, the NIH announced a new Public Access Policy, which took effect on July 1, 2025. The new policy requires the immediate deposition to PubMed Central of the author accepted articles of any accepted research that received NIH funding. This type of Open Access is commonly called Green Open Access. Thankfully, both Mary Ann Liebert and Sage Publications support Green Open Access as part of their self-archiving policies. Any Biopreservation and Biobanking author that needs to comply with the new policy can upload the Author Accepted Article to PubMed Central.
We’re looking forward to 2025 continuing to be an exciting year for the journal. Many thanks to all our authors, reviewers, associate editors, guest editors, and editorial board for their many contributions to the journal.