Coping with the challenges of the next four years

The Editors are flattered by the kind invitation of the Board of Management, representing the two prestigious scientific Societies of which the Journal is the official organ, to continue their task for a further 3 years beyond their previous mandate expiring by the end of 2002. We are grateful to all those who have generously helped us during the past years, the Associate Editors, all members of the Editorial Board, the several hundred reviewers and the several hundred authors who have submitted manuscripts. Their help and contributions have made the Journal a lively and growing body of scientific information attracting an increasing number of remarkable manuscripts, which are being read and cited more and more, as shown by the steadily rising impact factor (3.640 according to the last evaluation published in September 2001). With the present issue the Journal of Hypertension reaches its twentieth year of publication in a very good state of health. If we are justified to be pleased by the achievements of the past, our satisfaction is clouded by the obvious concerns about the challenges that scientific journals, and specialized scientific journals in particular, are facing in the present era of ever and ever faster communication. We believe, however, that there are needs of the scientific community to which only a journal of high scientific standards, such as the Journal of Hypertension, can appropriately respond. The scientific community is now faced with easy but indiscriminate access to all kinds of information, and our task is to present information selected and edited on the basis of expert advice, and chosen with attention to novelty of conception, originality of methodological approach and relevance of scientific findings, to favour a real advancement in the understanding of disease and in clinical application. Careful selection of reviewers, among those most experienced in any given field of research, and their enthusiastic collaboration and keen scrutiny of the submitted material constitute well established tools to guarantee the quality that readers expect from papers published in our Journal. Finding the right balance between basic and clinical information is a difficult task for the Editors, who are well aware that their endeavour may not invariably be successful. Providing high quality information is not the only task of a scientific journal, an equally important one is offering an instrument for critical appraisal of this information. Nowadays, this critical appraisal is, so to say, confined behind the scene, in the often prolonged to and fro correspondence between authors and reviewers, with benefits that commonly remain restricted to the authors (and sometimes to the reviewers as well) and only indirectly reflect upon the readers. We plan to give public voice to referees more often, asking one or more of them to accompany the paper that they have helped to review with a commentary, discussing the scientific problems addressed by the paper and pointing out the values and limitations of the approach that the authors have followed or of the findings they have reported. This, we think, will stimulate readers’ interest and help them in a critical evaluation of the data. In addition, a greater visibility of the reviewers’ work, with a selective offer to comment in the Journal, may be an incentive for referees to accept the Editors’ pressing invitation to review and provide a detailed thoughtful assessment of manuscripts. The ability to promptly deliver information without sacrificing its quality is another challenge for the Editors. Speeding up the reviewing process cannot go beyond a given limit if a critical review is required, and the subsequent revision process of a manuscript is a task for the authors, not the journal. Reducing the time gap between acceptance and publication, however, is, a joint duty of the Editors and the Publishers. We are grateful to the Publishers who, in the face of an increasing number of accepted papers, have agreed to substantially increase the number of journal pages. In this way, we have been able to curtail the backlog of manuscripts: once accepted, a manuscript can now be included in the next available issue, which will appear in approximately 3–4 months. As a further resource to speed up the dissemination of the scientific content of our Journal, each monthly issue is now publishing condensed abstracts (approximately 100 words) of articles that will appear in the subsequent issue. For authors, this means that some information on their findings will be given within 2–3 months of manuscript acceptance. For readers, this anticipation of forthcoming information will provide a more immediate access to data and stimulate greater attention on the content of future issues of the Journal. We are aware that, as Editors, we are faced with ever continuing challenges to improve the quality of our Journal, but confidently rely on suggestions and comments from our colleagues in the Editorial Board, from the many scientists who have made the Journal of Hypertension a highly qualified scientific forum, and from all readers who, we hope, will continue to find the Journal of Hypertension a help for their research and a stimulus to their scientific curiosity. Let us take this opportunity to acknowledge once more the unremitting help of the Executive Editors and the efficient and devoted work of the Milan Editorial Assistants, Mrs Cinzia Tiberi, Grazia Soriani and Lidia Rossi.