Publication Guide
The Company of Biologists is a not-for-profit publishing charity founded in Cambridge, UK, in 1925. Unlike commercial publishers, it exists to support biologists: surpluses from its five journals fund travelling fellowships, scientific meetings, workshops, and community sites such as the Node, preLights, and FocalPlane. Its portfolio is small but distinguished - Development, Journal of Cell Science (JCS), Journal of Experimental Biology (JEB), Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM), and Biology Open (BiO) are each leading venues in their fields.
This guide covers how to choose among the five journals, the open-access routes and current APCs, the peer-review workflow, and how to submit.
Which Company of Biologists journal fits your paper?
| You're most likely to... | Choose this journal |
|---|---|
| Report advances in developmental biology or stem cells | Development - the field's flagship since 1953 (originally the Journal of Embryology and Experimental Morphology); hybrid with an OA option. |
| Report advances in cell biology | Journal of Cell Science - a leading cell-biology journal with roots going back to 1853; hybrid with an OA option. |
| Report comparative animal physiology, biomechanics, or experimental zoology | Journal of Experimental Biology - the leading journal in comparative physiology, publishing since 1923; hybrid with an OA option. |
| Present a disease model or translational mechanism study | Disease Models & Mechanisms - fully Open Access, focused on model systems for human disease. |
| Publish methodologically sound biology without novelty-based selection | Biology Open - fully Open Access, sound-science criteria, the lowest APC in the portfolio. |
What The Company of Biologists publishes
Five peer-reviewed journals, all in the biological sciences:
- Development - developmental biology and stem-cell research; the group's highest-impact title.
- Journal of Cell Science - all areas of cell biology, including a strong tools-and-resources section.
- Journal of Experimental Biology - comparative animal physiology and biomechanics.
- Disease Models & Mechanisms - fully-OA journal on model organisms and mechanisms of human disease, launched 2008.
- Biology Open - fully-OA, launched 2011, publishing rigorous research across the biological sciences using soundness-based peer review.
All five are indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed.
Open access and APCs
The Company of Biologists offers every major OA route:
- Gold OA (fully-OA journals) - Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open are 100% Open Access under CC BY.
- Hybrid OA - Development, JCS and JEB offer an immediate-OA option per article; the publisher continues to run them as transformative journals, growing OA share year on year (cOAlition S ended its formal TJ framework at the end of 2024).
- Subscription route (no fee) - articles in Development, JCS and JEB can be published at no cost and become free to read 12 months after publication; Green self-archiving of the accepted manuscript is permitted.
- Read & Publish - institutional agreements give corresponding authors at hundreds of participating institutions uncapped, fee-free OA publishing across all five journals; an EIFL partnership extends fee-free OA to authors in 30+ developing and transition-economy countries.
| Journal | OA model | APC (2026, USD, before tax) |
|---|---|---|
| Development | Hybrid | ~$5,400 |
| Journal of Cell Science | Hybrid | ~$5,400 |
| Journal of Experimental Biology | Hybrid | ~$5,400 |
| Disease Models & Mechanisms | Fully OA | ~$4,250 |
| Biology Open | Fully OA | ~$2,500 |
Automatic full waivers apply for corresponding authors in low-income and lower-middle-income economies, and hardship waivers are available on request. Fees are revised periodically - always check the journal's open-access page before submitting.
Peer review process
- Model: single-anonymized peer review across all five journals; Biology Open assesses soundness rather than perceived significance.
- Editors: academic editors handle papers, supported by in-house professional editors.
- Preprints: all five journals are preprint-friendly and integrate with bioRxiv, including direct transfer of manuscripts and reviews.
- Transfers: rejected manuscripts can be transferred between Company of Biologists journals with reviews carried over, saving review cycles.
How to submit
- Pick the journal. Match your paper's field and selectivity expectations using the table above.
- Read the author guidelines. Each journal publishes detailed manuscript-preparation guidance at journals.biologists.com.
- Prepare your manuscript. Formatting is flexible at first submission; use the journal's SciSpace template to save formatting time. References follow the house numbered/author-date biology style per journal.
- Submit via Editorial Manager. The Company of Biologists migrated from its legacy BenchPress system to Editorial Manager in 2024; all new submissions now go through Editorial Manager, with bioRxiv transfer integration.
- Track and respond. Decisions, reviews, and revisions are handled in Editorial Manager.
Ethics and integrity
The Company of Biologists is a member of COPE, OASPA, and STM, and follows COPE guidelines on corrections and retractions. Data-availability statements are required, image-integrity screening is applied, and the charity's governance - a board of directors who are practising scientists - keeps editorial policy aligned with the research community.
Beyond the journals
A distinctive reason many biologists choose the Company: money stays in science. The charity awards travelling fellowships for lab visits, funds scientific meetings and workshops (including its own Journal Meetings and Workshops programme), and runs the community sites the Node (developmental biology), preLights (preprint highlights), and FocalPlane (microscopy).
