First in a special series: Analysis of the impact of papers published inEnvironmental Toxicology and Chemistryover the past 30 years—an overview and coming attractions

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The Publications Advisory Committee (PAC) within the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) is involved in several activities related to SETAC publications, including books, the Globe (society newsletter) and, of course, the two society-sponsored journals, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (ET&C) and Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (IEAM). One of the PAC's tasks is to increase the visibility of the journals both to Society membership and the broader scientific community. One way to do this, for example, is to assess the impacts of their content on science and regulation in the field of environmental sciences. A common metric of journal impact in social, physical, and biological sciences is the Impact Factor (IF). The IF, calculated annually for a journal, is defined as the total number of indexed citations to papers a journal has published over the prior two years, divided by the total number of papers published by that journal during that same period. The current IF for ET&C is about 3. An IF is not available for IEAM because the journal is not yet indexed. The IF has become an increasingly important determinant of where authors publish their work; hence, it is highly linked with journal visibility. Although the IF can provide important insights, using this metric in isolation to judge the impact of a journal is limited. For example, due to the relatively slow pace of change in regulatory procedures/activities in response to new science, highly applied papers in environmental toxicology and chemistry might be prone to delayed acknowledgments in terms of significant citations, which would not be captured by use measurements, such as the IF, which are focused on the shorter term. To help address the challenge of assessing the long-term impact of ET&C publications, the PAC recently analyzed the citations of all papers published in the journal since its inception in 1982. The analysis used the Thompson-Reuters Web of Science database and software. Over the course of its 30-year history, ET&C has published a total of 7,674 indexed (citable) papers as of February 2012 when the analysis was conducted. The top 100 cited papers from that analysis (actually 102 papers—the 100th position was a tie) are listed in Table 1. Notably, all papers had been cited more than 100 times, ranging from 117 citations for papers published by Nebeker et al. (1; toxicity test methods for sediments), Meylan et al. (2; predicting water solubility of chemicals), and Arukwe et al. (3; effects of nonylphenol on Atlantic salmon) to a manuscript by Jobling et al. (4; concerning estrogenicity of nonylphenol in fish), which had been cited 818 times. This top 100 list spans a substantial time period, featuring two papers from as early as 1984 (Nebeker et al. 1 and Mount and Norberg 5, which are arguably “classics” in the areas of sediment and effluent test methods, respectively), to a comparatively recent review (2008) on nanomaterials by Klaine et al. 6. Perusing the topical content of the top 100 papers reveals a broad range of topics have been covered in environmental chemistry, toxicology, and risk assessment, with authors from several countries in North America and Europe represented. Not unexpectedly, the authors of many of the papers are highly accomplished scientists in their fields. Taken as a whole, the papers on the top 100 list are an excellent reflection of the high-visibility scientific and regulatory issues published over the past 30 years relative to evaluating the risk of wide-ranging inorganic and organic contaminants in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. It is impossible in this short editorial to address the significance and impacts of the individual papers and topical areas encompassed on the list. As such, we are implementing an innovative communication strategy to share some of this information with SETAC members and other environmental scientists. Specifically, we have asked prominent scientists involved with the work captured on the top 100 list to write short essays on the specific topic areas reflected in the highly-cited papers. For this effort, the PAC collated representative papers from the top 100 list into a manageable number of topical areas (24) as a basis for the essays. Examples of topical areas for which essays are being developed include: occurrence, causes, and significance of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the environment; chemical and biological approaches for assessing the effects of effluent or sediment-associated contaminants; advances in risk assessment practices; and detecting and evaluating contaminants of historical and emerging concern. In the coming calendar year, ET&C will publish 24 essays derived from the top 100 analysis that the PAC conducted. These essays will describe the science/regulatory challenge the research/analysis sought to address, explain how the research/paper(s) met this challenge, account for the practical impacts of the papers on science and regulatory activities, and identify remaining uncertainties/future directions for the line of research described in the cited papers. In addition to being published in ET&C, the essays will be archived and readily available electronically; details on this portion of the effort are being finalized and will be communicated to Society membership in the near future. The PAC feels that developing and publishing the various essays derived from the list of top 100 papers will have the dual benefit of highlighting the impact of past ET&C publications and providing an important and unique historical accounting of high-impact environmental research conducted by scientists associated with SETAC. In addition, we feel that the essays will provide significant insights regarding evolving issues/needs within the field of environmental toxicology and chemistry. We hope that the society membership enjoys and benefits from this retrospective and prospective analysis.