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Mike Mostovski

Mike Mostovski

Editor-in-Chief
Indago (formerly Navorsinge van die Nasionale Museum)

South Africa

In addition to my being a researcher in palaeontology and entomology, I am a fairly active player in the publishing (mostly STM) environment for 29 years (since 1995), first as a subject and copy editor for the Paleon­tological Journal (Springer), an assistant/graphics editor/editor-in-chief/managing editor for African Invertebrates (KwaZulu-Natal Museum, South Africa), managing and production editor for the Journal of Management and Administration (MANCOSA, Durban, South Africa), and presently as chief editor for the Israel Journal of Entomology (Entomological Society of Israel), editor-in-chief for Indago (a scholarly journal; formerly Navorsinge van die Nasionale Museum) and copy editor for Culna (a popular magazine; both published by the National Museum, Bloemfontein, South Africa), and desk editor for the European Journal of Taxonomy (CETAF – Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities). On a side, I offer editorial and layout services to organizations and academics in a broad field of natural sciences, from geology, palaeontology and zoology to physics and antibiotic resistance.

Having dealt with hundreds of manuscripts, authors and reviewers, I have acquired an intimate knowledge of all as­pects of editorial processes and scholarly publishing. During my tenure at the KwaZulu-Natal Museum, a century-old journal African Invertebrates (Annals of the Natal Museum prior to 2000) received its very first JCR Impact Factor (1.27) in 2009, went Open Access in 2011, becoming the first and the only African e-journal in animal taxonomy/systematics, grew three-fold to some 900 pp. in 2015, and developed from a fully subsidized to entirely financially independent journal. I also ensured that the Israel Journal of Entomology met necessary requirements for re-entering into the Scopus indexing in 2020, after a gap of about 15 years. My current (and ambitious) goal is to revive Indago and to pave its way into Scopus and/or DOAJ (or even–who knows?–into JCR itself!).

I am passionate about keeping up the highest (i.e. vintage) standards in academic publishing, whether it comes to the scientific rigor and presentation of manuscripts, uncompromising intolerance towards plagiarism, fair, impartial and preferably open peer-review, meticulous editing or immaculate layout of articles. I readily face (and enjoy) rapidly emerging trends and challenges in the present-day publishing world filled with open access, cybertaxonomy and artificial intelligence. That said, I cannot imagine myself rocking idly in my chair without a conventionally printed book.

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