Quo vadis Endocrine

Abstract

This is my first Editorial as Editor-in-Chief of Endocrine and, first of all, I would like to welcome all the old and new readers of the journal to what I hope will be, for most of them, a common house for staying in touch with the latest advancements in basic and clinical endocrine research. Previous Editor-in-Chief and founder of the journal, Dr. Michael Conn, has done a wonderful job of achieving a strong reputation for Endocrine in the scientific community. When Springer, the new and very well-known publisher of the journal, first contacted me about the opportunity to become the new Editor-in-Chief, my feelings were mixed. I felt honored and pleased but, at the same time, conscious of accepting a big challenge. Now the decision has been made, and you probably do not want to hear more about private things, such as my family being a little nervous about my having extra work on nights and weekends. Instead, I guess you are much more interested in knowing what we already did for the journal and along what lines we intend to move toward the future of Endocrine. First of all, I want to share with the readers what my concept of being an Editor-in-Chief is. I served on the Editorial Boards of many international endocrine journals, and I learned a great deal from many marvelous editors. They taught me that running a journal is not a one-man show. It is a team effort in which Associate Editors, Editorial Board, reviewers, and publisher all play very important roles. A good Editor-in-Chief is the one who limits to a minimum the mistakes and bias that the whole peer-reviewing process unavoidably bears per se. The ultimate goal, in fact, is always to publish the best science possible; of course, as a result of the space constraints that all the journals have, there are choices to be made that are often close calls. Moreover, a good Editor-in-Chief should have in mind a strategic plan to develop the journal and, in particular, be able to understand the evolving needs of the readership. In fact, any scientific journal should be published not in order to satisfy the egos of the editors or the publishers, but with the precise objective of making a useful contribution to the progress of science and to the exchange of notions and cross-talk among researchers. At this point, how do we put this theory into practice? In other words (you will excuse my Latin use, which is a tribute to my origins as an Italian)–quo vadis Endocrine? My first step as an Editor-in-Chief was, as a consequence of the principles that I alluded above, to put together an effective editorial team. I will have three Associate Editors (Carmine Gazzaruso, Gherardo Mazziotti, and Giovanni Tulipano) who will work closely with me in running the journal, a role facilitated by their also being close to me geographically. They are three relatively young scientists, highly committed with strong scientific backgrounds [1–3] and very good experience in handling research manuscripts. I know from direct previous experience in cooperation with them that they will do fantastic work and soon become a steady reference for all of you. Moreover, with their help, we have put together a superb Editorial Board possessing incredible endocrine and metabolic skills. Just take a look at the list of members to immediately understand that this Board will soon become one of the biggest strengths of the journal. These great experts, who are also great men and women, were selected to represent the whole endocrine world in terms of both countries and areas of interest (their expertise covers all the main fields of endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism). A. Giustina (&) Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy e-mail: Endocrine_eic@libero.it