The European Thyroid Journal Enters Its Second Year of Publication in Excellent Shape

Abstract

As Editor-in-Chief of the European Thyroid Journal (ETJ) it is my pleasure to report how we have been doing in the first year of publication. My conclusion is that we delivered not a baby journal with neonatal distress but already a well grown-up, mature and robust scientific publication. To support my conclusion, here are some figures. We published 6 editorials, 4 guidelines, 11 reviews, 18 original papers, and 6 letters to the editor, dealing with both basic, translational and clinical thyroidology. Rejection rate was 39%. I do not apologize for the rejection rate, which is relatively high for a new journal, as we are reluctant to compromise on scientific quality. In this respect I would like to thank very much our reviewers, who are instrumental in maintaining high scientific standards. As a token of appreciation for their essential job, we acknowledge all reviewers in the year 2012 in the list below. Time to first decision (either rejection or revision) is on average 25 days, which is remarkably short and compares favourably with other journals. The figure will be attractive for prospective authors. Submissions came from all continents. Not surprisingly, 74% of submissions originated from Europe, but 26% were from outside Europe (North America, Latin America, Africa, Australia, the Middle East and especially from the Far East including Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia). It testifies to the truly international character of the journal, also evident from the composition of the Editorial Board. The journal has been received very well by the international community. To a certain extent this may reflect trust in the European Thyroid Association, as the ETJ is the official journal of the ETA. But the well-conducted promotion campaign orchestrated by Karger Publishers certainly contributed to the propitious response. Indeed it was very difficult for participants of major endocrine conferences – including the annual 2012 meetings of the ETA and ATA – not to become aware of the existence of ETJ. I myself liked especially the various ETA guidelines and even more the accompanying editorials, which put the recommendations in perspective. The ETA guidelines are special in a way that they are dealing with small topics of limited scope, which generally have not given much attention. In these areas the highest levels of evidence are often lacking because no randomized clinical trials are available. Consequently, the recommendations are really expert driven. Just in these grey zones the recommendations could be very useful for clinicians, and we will continue with regular publication of upcoming ETA guidelines. I valued my job as Editor-in-Chief because I considered launching a new journal as an experiment, which – as any experiment – could either succeed or fail. Especially in the present times with so much competition between journals, success is by no means guaranteed. It looks however as if the experiment is going to be successful: the prospects for ETJ, given the record of the first volume, are very healthy. I look forward to receiving papers from all corners of the world, as long as they are related to the thyroid and meet quality criteria. Suggestions for improvement of the journal are always very welcome. Also on behalf of associate editors Josef Koehrle, Luca Persani, Peter Laurberg and Furio Pacini, I wish you much pleasure in reading our forthcoming papers in 2013.