I’m at Kew today for the first Plants, People, Plant symposium. PPP is the new Open Access journal from the New Phytologist trust, “which will focus on the interface between plants, society, and the environment, highlighting plants, and plant‐based research, in its broadest sense.” From my point of view, it’s interesting because it’s cross-disciplinary but still has a clear mission. In practical terms, it makes the journal a great venue for discussing plant matters beyond science rigorously.

https://twitter.com/PMGilmartin/status/1169166699180019712

Simon Hiscock opened the symposium, with a hello, and a bit more of an explanation of the journal. He highlighted the Societal Impact statements, brief statements that say why you should care about a particular paper. These short paragraphs say how the research will affect the world you live in. Paul Wilkin and Alexandre Antonelli followed up, both emphasising the importance of plants to human action. It’s a different focus to typical botany meetings where it’s all about the plants (or pathogens or pollinators etc…)