Publish with the Microbiology Society

Get a great publishing experience and help support the important work that we do.

Researchers working in microbiology today have a wider range of publishing options than ever before in the field’s history. Publication of research is still the cornerstone of most microbiologists’ careers, but choosing the right journal can be a minefield. New journals are seemingly launched every month, and span from the very niche to the broad ‘mega’ journal. Authors are faced with a dizzying range of options and pricing, and with all this choice it can be hard to work out the best place to send your research. It has become increasingly important to authors to know that they’re publishing in a reputable journal, with good publishing standards and values.

We would like to strongly encourage our members to consider submitting their next article to one of the Microbiology Society’s six peer-reviewed journals. The Society has been publishing research since 1947, and our journals are widely recognised as established, high-quality publications in the field. Whether your paper sits within microbial ecology, clinical microbiology, virology, or an emerging field like biotech or genomics, it should be suitable for one of our journals. It is free to publish in the journals (unless you choose our paid, gold open access option, OpenMicrobiology, or publish in one of our two fully gold open access journals), and we have fast turnaround times with high production standards. We also have a global readership – our journals are subscribed to by research institutions around the world and read by the international microbiology community.

Unlike commercial publishers (who publish the majority of journals in microbiology), we reinvest all profits from our publishing enterprise back into microbiology through the work that the Society does. 

This includes funding our grants, putting on our scientific meetings, and supporting our education and policy outreach programmes. Journal revenues represent around 90% of the Society’s income – they are essential if we are to continue our work and deliver our mission of advancing the understanding and impact of microbiology by connecting and empowering communities worldwide.

81% of authors stated that they would submit to the journal again, and would recommend publishing with the Microbiology Society to a friend or colleague.

If you read the author survey report in the last issue of Microbiology Today, you’ll have seen that our journals offer a great publishing experience for authors. When asked, 83% of the authors who submitted to our journals within the last two years reported that they found the submission process either ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’. 

Publishing with the Society also provides extensive opportunities for collaboration, sharing of research and dissemination to the microbiology community. Our Communications team frequently interviews our authors and features their research in news articles, podcasts and videos. Visit our YouTube channel now to watch a film with Journal of General Virology author Dr Derek Gatherer on the spread of the Zika virus.

If you’re heading to the Annual Conference this year, be sure to attend the workshop on how to write a manuscript for submission, where Editors and publishing staff from our journals will be on hand to offer guidance on the publishing process.

The six journals published by the Microbiology Society are Microbiology, Journal of General Virology, Journal of Medical Microbiology, JMM Case Reports, Microbial Genomics and International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. For more information about the journals we publish, and how you can submit your article, please visit microbiologyresearch.org. If you’d like to ask us anything at all about publishing with the Society, or get any general advice about publishing research, please get in touch at [email protected]. 

Simon Hagan

Marketing Manager