Copyright © 2004 by the European Society of Cardiology.
Editorial
The European Heart Journal: a European journal with a global impact in cardiovascular medicine
European Heart Journal, Department of Cardiology, Gasthuisberg University Hospital, Leuven, Belgium
* Correspondence to: Dr. Neil Goodman, PhD, Department of Cardiology, Gasthuisberg University Hospital, Herestraat 49, B3000 Leuven, Belgium. Tel.: +32-16-342-118; fax: +32-16-342-138
neil.goodman{at}uz.kuleuven.ac.be
Under the editorial directives of Prof Kim Fox, the European Heart Journal has become one of the most important international journals in clinical cardiovascular (CV) medicine. This has paralleled the growing influence and importance of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), of which the European Heart Journal is the principal journal, in global CV medicine today. Besides high-level, peer-reviewed research papers, the Journal is the forum where the ESC publishes its much used and cited guidelines aimed at promoting the immediate use of the latest research findings for patient treatment, positioning the Journal at the forefront of the trend towards an evidence-based clinical CV medicine.
As of 1st October 2002, the Editorial Office left London, England, and came to Leuven in Belgium. This change of address and leadership has led to a significant number of changes within the journal itself including a broadening of the scope of the articles published and the introduction of a fully electronic and online system, which facilitates the submission of manuscripts from authors and streamlines the reviewing and publication processes.
In order to manage the amount of papers and the broad and numerous scope of subspecialities, a local team of 22 Associate Editors, each with a specialty in a sub-discipline of CV medicine, has been established offering immediate expertise in the evaluation of each manuscript submitted to the European Heart Journal. The evaluation system (Fig. 1 ) has become highly comprehensive with each published paper now receiving a minimum of seven reviewers: three Editors, two or three expert reviewers, a detailed statistical review by our in-house bio-statisticians and final editing of the manuscript to ensure the accuracy of the paper's contents and to improve the consistency of house style and readability of the paper. A new international Editorial Board has also been constituted to provide the necessary expertise and high quality of the reviews. In addition, Liaising Associate Editors have been invited from outside Europe to help promote both the Journal and the ESC within their region of the world.
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The design and content of the journal itself have also seen significant changes, including a modern cover design, more attractive internal layout and increased number of pages per issue (from 88 to 100). A new section dedicated to publishing pre-clinical research has also been introduced, giving necessary coverage of important studies that are likely to have an immediate impact on future clinical research. This bench-to-bedside approach has widened the target audience, making the journal directly relevant to a significant proportion of professionals working in the field of CV medicine.
Fast-track publishing is now on offer to ensure the speedy publication of important clinical trial results. `Images in Cardiology' provide new and unusual findings, or innovative techniques, on the cover itself. All of these developments have resulted in a significant increase in the number of articles submitted to the European Heart Journal, since its editorial office moved to Leuven.
The European Heart Journal is a truly global journal, highly appreciated and used by professionals the world over. This can be seen from the breakdown of countries downloading full-text articles (Fig. 2 ) and in the geographical origin of submitted manuscripts (Fig. 3 ). The Leuven office has so far noted 61 different countries, with the majority of submissions originating from Western Europe, USA and Japan. Fig. 2 shows the top 30 submitting countries and the number of manuscripts submitted since 1st October, 2002. As can be seen, Italy, Germany and the UK submit their advances in CV medicine to the European Heart Journal more than any other country with 327, 327 and 322 manuscripts respectively. These countries are directly followed by the USA with 210 manuscripts.
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The Editorial Office received 1638 manuscripts in 2003, compared to 1046 submissions in 2001. This corresponds to an increase of 592 manuscripts (+64%). Looking at the number of submissions per geographical region for the years 2001 and 2003 (Fig. 4 ) we can see that all continents have increased their submission to the European Heart Journal from 45% to 500%. Of the finally accepted manuscripts, for all years the Editorial Office has been in Leuven, 84.5% has come from Europe; other contributing regions are Asia (5.9%), Australia/Oceania (3.5%), North America (2.7%), Middle East (2.1%), South America (1.3%), and Africa (0.5%).
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The current trend for academic journals is to make increasing use of the internet for the dissemination of submitted information. The European Heart Journal is no exception to this and we have invested heavily in electronic developments over the last few years. The Journal is now available online, both via www.ScienceDirect.com (academic institutions) and www.escardioContent.org (personal subscriptions, mainly ESC members). These investments have resulted in a significant increase in the online usage of the European Heart Journal, a major indicator of the increased contribution to developments in CV medicine (see Fig. 2).
The increased recognition of the European Heart Journal as one of the most important vehicles for publishing high quality CV research to the widest possible audience is reflected in the journal's ISI impact factor (Fig. 5 , top).The most current value available shows that the Journal has stayed relatively constant in 2003, compared to 2002, with 5.997. This places the journal amongst the top four in the field of CV medicine behind Circulation (impact factor 11.164), Circulation Research (10.117), and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (7.599).
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The ISI immediacy index, which gives the average number of times an article is cited in the same year of publication, has stayed relatively constant over the last 5 years. The most recent value, for 2003, is 1.374 (Fig. 5, bottom). This high immediacy index reflects our large subscription base having immediate access to the most relevant research.
No discussion of a journal's condition, or of its efforts to improve the dissemination of published work, would be complete without a mention of its reviewers. A journal's panel of expert reviewers significantly improves the quality of a submitted manuscript by stringently questioning the relevance and conciseness of the experimental design, the data generated and the interpretations made. Their reports also serve to aid the editors in choosing between competing manuscripts. Since arriving in Leuven, the Editorial Office has, to date, received 4338 completed reviewers' reports from 1390 reviewers. Our reviewers take, on average, 12.6 days to complete a review and 58% are received before our designated time limit. The Editorial Board would like to thank the hard work of all reviewers, particularly as, since the relocation of the Editorial Office, they have made an average of 3 (range: 1–39) reviews each.
The combination of the improvements made to the journal, the increased submission and recognition by the global CV medicine community, and not to mention a new Spanish language version (with plans to introduce more local language editions where possible) gives a significant foundation on which to continue building the reputation and importance of both the Journal and the Society in the forthcoming years.
Acknowledgments
Thanks go to Peter Backx and Elsevier for their contribution to the data collection and enthusiasm towards the journal.
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