Immunology– moving on up

Abstract

Immunology has made great strides during the past 5 years. This editorial reviews the journal's achievements during this period and looks forward to its future. Immunology has a new look, both in appearance and personnel. The change of cover seeks to attract a wider audience and to reflect the increased quality of the articles it publishes. The addition of internationally renowned immunologists: Peter Cresswell, William Heath, Klaus Heeg, Masayuki Miyasaka and Santa Ono give the editorial team a truly international dimension. Thanks go to Adrian Hayday for his tremendous contribution to the journal during this period. How about scientific performance? With the increased editorial team articles published are longer and more comprehensive and exposed to more rigorous critical review. This is reflected in the impact factor of the journal which rose 25% since 2000, and the journal's rank which rose from 43rd to 36th. The journal is making a bigger impact as reflected by the immediacy index which has increased 61% since 1999, while the cited half life has remained high (7·0 in 2000, 7·8 in 2003). Self citation is commendably low (4%), in common with other leading journals. The management team of the journal has also seen changes. Our managing editor Allison Lang has moved to EMBO journal and our editorial assistant Rubina Begum has started a PhD. I am indebted to them both for their hard work, enthusiasm and scientific expertise, and together with the authors and readers of Immunology wish them well in their new posts. Together with Clinical and Experimental Immunology, Immunology is now managed by Cate Livingstone and Sarah Tobin to whom I am also most grateful for all their hard work and support. The introduction of the new electronic submission system has dramatically improved the efficiency of the peer-review process and editorial decisions are now provided, on average, within 28 days of submission. With the introduction of OnlineEarly by Blackwell Publishing, accepted papers now appear online ahead of print publication so reducing the average time to publication following acceptance to 54 days (64 days for print). This is an outstanding achievement for which the editorial team, reviewers and production staff are most warmly congratulated. The journal has incorporated a number of new sections. Reviews and comment are both doing well and appear popular with readers. Suggestions for new review topics and review contributors are most welcome. Please feel free to contact me direct (gs.ude.sun@mdkcim) or via the editorial office (gro.ygolonummi@mmi). Last year we included our first spotlight article by John Oxford, on SARS. These seek to highlight topical issues in immunology and we plan to publish more of them; suggestions, again, are most welcome. Immunology has made great strides. The editorial policies aimed at improving the quality of the articles we publish have remained steadfast. After an initial reduction in submissions these have stabilized. I now urge readers to help us take the journal further by submitting their work to this rapidly improving journal and by reading Immunology on a regular basis. I welcome your comments, both praise and criticism. These changes, coupled with a large global readership, make Immunology an excellent vehicle for the rapid dissemination of significant research findings in immunology.