Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology under new editorship: change and continuity.

Abstract

Effective July 1, 2016, I will become the Editor-in-Chief of Naunyn-Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology, the oldest existing pharmacological journal founded in 1873 (Starke 1998) as successor of Prof. Dr. Martin Michel, who has steered the journal since 2002. I would like to cordially thank Martin for his dedicated and outstanding service to the journal. Martin has served in various functions for NaunynSchmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology without interruption since 1994 and will continue as Associate Editor. Under Martin’s direction, Naunyn-Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology has prospered: The number of submissions to the journal has doubled since 2005. This is remarkable in light of the fact that several other traditional pharmacology journals are suffering decreases in their submissions, a development that is in part due to the competition by new open-access journals and many specialized journals covering one aspect or another of pharmacology. However, this increase in submission has neither resulted in an inflation of the content nor quality of Naunyn-Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology. This is reflected by a current manuscript acceptance rate of 39 % that is similar to the rates of other leading pharmacology journals. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology has become a fast journal with a 26-day interval from submission to the first decision in 2015. Once accepted, publication occurs fast, and the online-first publication ensures rapid dissemination of an article in the scientific community before a print issue has been determined. The journal now also features an open access-option for authors, broadening exposure of a paper to the scientific community. However, even without the open-access option, the journal is available in almost 10,000 institutions worldwide. Under Martin’s leadership, the journal has become truly international with submissions from more than 30 countries in 2015. In 2015, the countries with the most publications were Germany > Egypt > China > Poland > Brazil > India > Japan. The increasing internationality of the journal is also being reflected by the composition of the Editorial Board and the Editorial Advisory Board. Members of these two boards contributed very substantially to the high quality of the journal, also reflected by a stable impact factor of around 2.5. I wish to thank our board members for their excellent service to the journal. Martin introduced several new features into the journal such as theme issues (Gomsyan and Szallasi 2015; Hsu et al. 2015), comprehensive non-clinical single compound reviews (Modjtahedi et al. 2014; Michel et al. 2015a), editorials (Michel et al. 2015b; Schneider et al. 2015; Seifert 2015a), debates (Seifert 2014; Gao and Vanhoutte 2014), letters to the editor (Michel-Reher and Michel 2015), and meeting reports (Friebe et al. 2015; Heifetz et al. 2015; Schneider and Seifert 2015), stimulating scientific exchange. Papers in these sections are downloaded very frequently. In the field of validation of receptor antibodies, Naunyn-Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology has earned exceptionally high international recognition and constitutes the leading international discussion forum on this important topic (Beermann et al. 2012; Bohmer et al. 2014; Ashton et al. 2014; Cecyre et al. 2014; Cernecka et al. 2014; Tripathi et al. 2016). Pharmacology has always changed in terms of methods and research topics, but the chemical compound, be it an experimental tool, a drug candidate, or a clinically approved drug, has always been in the center. This will continue to be * Roland Seifert seifert.roland@mh-hannover.de