Looking Back, Looking Forward

Abstract

For the last 12 years, I have had the great privilege of leading the editorial team at Circulation . As my tenure as editor-in-chief comes to a close, I would like to reflect on the changes that have occurred in the journal, the role of journal editor, and the future of the journal, and do so in light of the rapidly changing landscape of cardiovascular biology and disease. Circulation has been a premier source of new and important information for researchers, practitioners, and trainees in cardiovascular biomedicine since its inception in 1950. Its editors have always prided themselves on providing the most cutting-edge information to the entire cardiovascular community, aiming to be all things to all readers. While doing so has required greater publication frequency and an ever-increasing number of pages to accommodate the rapid expansion of pertinent information, Circulation , the American Heart Association, and the publisher have risen to that challenge effectively over the last decade. In addition, very soon after I began my tenure, the journal became fully electronic and, beginning in 2008, expanded to a family of journals, with each journal focusing on select cardiovascular subspecialties. Together with the American Heart Association’s open-access journal the Journal of the American Heart Association , Circulation and the entire American Heart Association publishing enterprise set as a goal an increase in the number of papers published in this broad family of journals. We chose to do so to accommodate scientifically sound manuscripts that we historically rejected owing to space limitations. As a result of these efforts, published manuscripts increased significantly, as did reviewed manuscripts. These changes in publication format and access were necessary to adapt to the rapidly …