Publication Guide
Pleiades Publishing is the main gateway between Russian-language science and the international literature. The group publishes about 200 English-language journals - by its own account more than 180 titles and over 20,000 articles per year - spanning physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, earth sciences, engineering, and economics. Most are English editions of journals long associated with the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and other institutes across Russia and Eastern Europe, and all are hosted and distributed worldwide by Springer Nature on SpringerLink.
The model has deep roots: cover-to-cover English translation of Soviet physics and chemistry journals began in the late 1950s, and the modern structure - Pleiades Publishing working with the Moscow joint venture MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica and the Allerton Press imprint - took shape in the early 1990s. If you have ever cited JETP Letters, Doklady Mathematics, or a Russian Journal of ... title, you have read a Pleiades journal.
Which Pleiades journal fits your paper?
Pleiades titles are field-specific rather than tiered by selectivity, so the choice is mostly a subject match. A few navigation rules help:
| You're most likely to... | Choose this route |
|---|---|
| Work in theoretical or experimental physics | JETP Letters (rapid communications) or Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics - the flagship physics pair; Physics of Atomic Nuclei for nuclear and particle physics. |
| Work in astronomy or astrophysics | Astronomy Reports (full papers) or Astronomy Letters (short papers). |
| Work in chemistry | The Russian Journal of ... family - Organic, Inorganic, General, and Physical Chemistry - plus specialist titles such as High Energy Chemistry. |
| Work in mathematics | Doklady Mathematics for short announcements of new results; Mathematical Notes for full research papers. |
| Want a short, fast announcement of a major result | A Doklady title - the historic RAS proceedings format, published in English by Pleiades. |
| Publish in Russian first | Submit to the Russian-language original (now published by Nauka for RAS titles); accepted papers appear in the corresponding Pleiades English edition. |
What Pleiades Publishing actually publishes
- Translated journals - English editions produced cover-to-cover from Russian-language originals, historically the core of the portfolio. Issues follow the original edition's schedule.
- English-first international journals - a growing share of titles accept direct submissions in English from authors worldwide; authorship is strongest across Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and neighboring countries.
- Proceedings-style titles - the Doklady family (Mathematics, Physics, and others) publishing short communications of new results.
A structural note for 2024 onward: the Russian Academy of Sciences designated the state publisher Nauka as the sole publisher of its Russian-language journals, ending the earlier arrangement in which MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica handled them. Pleiades continues to publish English-language editions under its own journal titles, still distributed via Springer Nature. Some journals now operate in parallel Russian and English versions with separate workflows, so always confirm the current submission route on the journal's SpringerLink homepage before you submit.
Open access and fees
Most Pleiades journals are subscription-based with no publication fee for standard articles - a genuine advantage if you have no APC funding.
| Route | What it costs | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription publication | $0 | Default for most titles; readers access via Springer subscription packages. |
| Hybrid OA (Open Choice) | Varies by journal | Available on many titles through Springer's platform; check the journal's fees page for the current APC. |
| Green self-archiving | $0 | Permitted - authors may deposit the accepted manuscript in repositories, subject to the journal's embargo terms. |
Pleiades is not a major participant in transformative (Read & Publish) agreements, so institutional OA deals rarely cover these titles; fee waivers are handled per journal by the editorial office.
Peer review process
- Model: single-anonymized peer review is standard across the portfolio, run by the journal's editorial board.
- Editorial boards: international boards that, per the publisher, operate independently of any government body.
- Turnaround: varies widely by journal; translated editions add production time for translation after acceptance in the original edition.
How to submit
- Pick the journal by subject match - the Pleiades website (pleiades.online) lists the full portfolio, and each journal has a SpringerLink homepage.
- Check the submission route. English-first titles take direct submissions through the publisher's own online portal; translated titles may require submission to the Russian-language original.
- Prepare your manuscript per the journal's author guidelines - English-edition references follow numbered (Vancouver-style) citation formatting; SciSpace hosts formatting templates for Pleiades journals.
- Submit and track via the publisher's portal or the original edition's editorial office, as directed on the journal page.
- Proofs and translation. For translated titles, expect a translation-review step before the English edition appears.
Ethics and integrity
Pleiades Publishing is a COPE member and applies standard research-integrity screening across its portfolio. Retractions and corrections propagate to the SpringerLink-hosted versions. Because many titles exist in paired Russian and English editions, cite the edition you actually used - the English editions are separately registered journals with their own ISSNs.
