Blood Transfusion's first "impact factor".

Abstract

2.519 This is the value of the impact factor that the Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition attributed Blood Transfusion for the year 2010 after Thomson Reuters had reported, in January 2011, that Blood Transfusion had been selected for coverage in products and services and that, beginning with volume 6 (1) 2008, our journal would be indexed and abstracted in Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch®) and the Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition. This is a wonderful result, on the one hand because it is the first time that Blood Transfusion has been awarded an impact factor and on the other hand because the value is particularly high, indicating that our scientific journal is among the most important in the field of Transfusion Medicine. This is a goal of a process started in 2003, when the Italian Society of Transfusion Medicine and Immunohaematology (SIMTI) started the project of modernisation and re-launching of its journal, by flanking the Italian articles with their English versions, a step indispensable for entry into the international scientific arena. Another major step was made in 2007 with the difficult decision to renounce the use of Italian and publish the journal entirely in English, as well as fully embracing the scientific method of peer review, developing a web site and allowing free access to it for the whole scientific community1. In 2008 Blood Transfusion was selected and included by the National Library of Medicine in the PubMed-MEDLINE database and the journal was also indexed in the Embase and Scopus databases, in PubMed Central and in Google Scholar2. In this very editorial section, we had explicitly set out the aim of obtaining an impact factor for Blood Transfusion. Another fact of great relevance is that Blood Transfusion is no long the official organ of only SIMTI, but has become the patrimony of four other European scientific societies. This important achievement is due to the commitment of the Board and Affiliated Editors and of the International Editorial Board, to SIMTI’s support -also financial- of the project, to the development of the website, to the team in the Editorial Office who have put so much enthusiasm into carrying out their work and, finally, to the numerous referees around the world who, in some cases, have become fervent supporters of the journal with their diligence and suggestions. Blood Transfusion today has different tasks and roles. The affiliation of the European scientific societies has been a good way of stimulating scientific collaboration and awareness. We must now broaden this participation (the procedure to include the Croatian Society of Haematology and Transfusion Medicine is underway) and find new ways for a more direct participation by everyone in the management of Blood Transfusion. We must develop this process because it will enable people to feel that Blood Transfusion is their “own” journal: a journal in which they can print what they write (provided they write well!), but also a vehicle for publishing specific supplements containing the proceedings of their national congresses, courses and meetings of local or scientific value that can appear in PubMed. Obtaining an impact factor has been a great achievement, but inevitably also sets a new starting point because it obliges us to take on and maintain the responsibility of scientific warranty in an international context: obtaining the impact factor was a long and tasking process, improving it or even only maintaining it will be even more difficult and challenging. This is our new aim.