Trust Seal: Frequently Asked Questions

The research landscape is evolving rapidly, and there is growing need for new indicators and community-led best practices. Even modest erosion of trust in science can have meaningful consequences. The Trust Seal is a proactive effort to strengthen trust in science.

The Trust Seal is designed to complement, not replace, existing publishing standards and frameworks already in place. Many strong standards and best practices already exist across the scholarly publishing landscape. However, these frameworks are often distributed across different organizations and may not always be easily visible, recognizable, or understandable to authors, readers, institutions, or AI tools.

The Trust Seal aims to:

• Create a structured evaluation framework complemented by existing standards and expert guidance
• Encourage publications and entities to make a strong commitment to trustworthy publishing practices

The specific standards and evaluation criteria associated with the Trust Seal will ultimately be developed and refined by the independent, community-led Trust Seal Committee.
The initiative also reflects a broader recognition that confidence in science and scientific publishing must continue to be strengthened and supported. As challenges continue to grow, there is increasing need for clearer signals that help identify publications committed to best practices.
At its core, the Trust Seal is intended to support a collaborative, community-led effort to strengthen confidence in scientific publishing by advancing trustworthy practices.

A Trust Seal indicates that a publication has adopted policies and practices aligned with a defined set of community-led best practices for trustworthy science.

The Trust Seal is intended to be a visual indicator to authors and readers that is also recognizable to emerging AI-driven research and discovery tools. The Trust Seal indicates that a publication has been evaluated against and meets or exceeds standards established by the independent Trust Seal Committee.

The Trust Seal is not intended to guarantee the accuracy of every individual article or research outcome, but rather to signal that a publication has implemented strong policies, systems, and practices designed to support confidence in scientific publishing.

The Trust Seal is being led by a growing coalition of scientific societies and organizations across the scholarly ecosystem, with other partners expected following the announcement.

Supporting Members

Supporting Members are organizations actively contributing to the development of the Trust Seal framework and helping shape the community-led best practices that will guide evaluations. Supporting Members are represented on the independent Trust Seal Committee and participate in the initiative’s governance and ongoing development.

Current Supporting Members include:

• American Society for Microbiology (ASM)
• American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET)
• European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)
• Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)
• Shock Society (SHOCK)
• Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine (SEBM)
• Society for Redox Biology and Medicine (SfRBM)
• Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR)

Endorsers

Endorsers publicly support the mission and goals of the Trust Seal and its broader effort to strengthen confidence in scientific publishing.

While Endorsers support the initiative and its vision, governance of the Trust Seal framework, evaluation criteria, and publication review process remains community-led through the independent Trust Seal Committee.

Endorsing organizations also play an important role in supporting the long-term sustainability and broader advancement of the initiative across the scholarly landscape. The Trust Seal is intended to benefit the research community, and broad ecosystem participation helps ensure that the development and growth of the initiative is collaborative and sustainable.

Current Endorsers include:

• Wiley

The independent Trust Seal Committee is the governing body responsible for developing the Trust Seal framework, defining evaluation criteria and eligibility standards, and overseeing the publications review process.

The committee is initially composed of representatives from participating scientific societies involved in the initiative. With the public announcement, we invite participation from broader stakeholder representation from across the research and scholarly communications community, including:

• Research integrity experts
• Funders
• Librarians

Evaluations will be conducted using clearly defined criteria and a structured review process established by the Trust Seal Committee.

To help support fairness and objectivity in the evaluation process, representatives from organizations with publications under evaluation will not participate in the review, discussion, or decision-making process related to their own publications.

The committee is expected to begin initial framework development work in mid-2026, with pilot evaluations anticipated to begin in late 2026 and the first Trust Seals expected to be awarded in 2027.

No.

Participation in the initiative does not guarantee that a publication will receive a Trust Seal. Each publication will be evaluated independently against the established standards and criteria defined by the Trust Seal Committee.

To help support fairness and objectivity in the evaluation process, committee members representing organizations with publications under review will not participate in discussions or decisions related to the evaluation of their own publications.

No.

Science is an evolving and self-correcting process, and no system can guarantee that every individual article is free from error or that integrity challenges will never occur. Retractions, corrections, and investigations are a normal and necessary part of maintaining the integrity of the scientific record.

The Trust Seal is intended to recognize publications that have implemented strong policies, practices, and safeguards. The initiative is focused on strengthening trust in science over time with evolving policies and practices.

The Trust Seal is governed through a community-led, multi-stakeholder committee structure designed to ensure accountability in the development of the framework.

Evaluation criteria and review processes will be applied consistently and informed by expert input from across the research ecosystem.

The Trust Seal framework and governance model is currently under development, with committee work beginning in 2026.

An evaluation pilot is anticipated to open in late 2026, with the first Trust Seals expected to be awarded in 2027.

We invite scientific societies and other stakeholder organizations interested in participating in or learning more about the Trust Seal to fill out our Contact Us form.