Integrity, Excellence, and Operational Maturity: The Qualitative Leap of BioNatura Journal: Ibero-American Journal of Biotechnology and Life Sciences (2024–2026)

BioNatura Journal celebrates its third anniversary by denoting a transition from an emerging publication to a consolidated scientific platform, driven by foundational efforts in 2024 and 2025. This period emphasized operational maturity and moral standards, highlighted by a constant publication cadence of four issues per year. Technological evolution was achieved through a formal migration to Open Journal Systems (OJS) to standardize metadata and ensure digital archiving via PKP PN and LOCKSS/CLOCKSS. Furthermore, the journal implemented an "Online First" policy to eliminate artificial delays in knowledge dissemination while retaining persistent DOIs. The success of its Open Access model is evidenced by over 1.16 million PDF downloads across 116 countries in 2025, as well as its inclusion in the OpenAlex ecosystem to foster candid communication. With a rigorous double-blind peer-review process and a diverse editorial board representing 22 countries, BioNatura published 180 articles involving authors from 27 nations. These results support the journal's role as a mature, international bridge for scientific collaboration in biotechnology and life sciences.