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Cardiovascular Research 1998 37(1):1-2; doi:10.1016/S0008-6363(97)00269-1
© 1998 by European Society of Cardiology
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Copyright © 1998, European Society of Cardiology

How to handle an over 25% increase in submissions

Tobias Opthof1

Recently, the number of submissions to Cardiovascular Research has increased by more than 25% (Fig. 1). We assume that this may be partly explained by the huge increase in impact factor over the recent years [1]from 1.47 in 1991 to 3.26 in 1996 as reported by the Institute for Scientific Information (Fig. 2).


Figure 1
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  		Fig. 1 Number of averaged monthly submissions from 1992 to 1996 and during the first 10 months of 1997. Starting March 1997 the number of submissions per month exceeded those in the same month during the 5 preceding years.

 

Figure 2
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  		Fig. 2 Impact factor of Cardiovascular Research from 1986 until 1996.

 
Despite the increased number of submissions Cardiovascular Research has been able to maintain [2]its rapid reviewing process (Fig. 3). A grant of Knoll AG, allowing us to offer reviewers who meet our deadline a compact disk of their choice, has been of great help in this respect.


Figure 3
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  		Fig. 3 Time needed for a first Editorial decision in bins of 100 manuscripts (or less for the last manuscripts submitted at the end of 1995 and 1996). The averaged decision time never exceeded 30 days and was normally at 27 days.

 
How to deal with the increased submission rate? We do not feel that our rapid reviewing process should be counteracted by a prolonged time to publication. Our analysis shows that about 35% of the papers that were published by Cardiovascular Research in recent years was not cited during the year following publication. Therefore we will reduce the acceptance rate from 35% to below 30% and we will increase the number of papers published per issue by about 10%.

We stress that the success of the Journal can only be maintained, or even improved, if authors send us their very best work. Again we thank our over 3000 reviewers for their support of the Journal. Even with an increased rejection rate of about 70%, it should be stressed that the Journal delivers valuable and fast reviewer's reports that may contribute to the improvement of manuscripts eventually published by other journals. Finally, we would like to point out that the impact factor of Cardiovascular Research will fully reflect the performance of the present Editorial Team for the first time in 1999, based on citations of the papers published in 1997 and 1998. Even the next impact factor of 1997, based on the papers published in 1995 and 1996 will primarily reflect the work of the previous Editors.


   Notes
 
1 On behalf of the Editorial Team. Back


   References
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 References
 

  1. Editorial. Cardiovascular Research enters top 10 of the cardiovascular category. Cardiovasc Res 1996;32:987.
  2. Coronel R, on behalf of the Editorial Team of Cardiovascular Research. A year in retrospect. Cardiovasc Res 1996;32:191-193.

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Home page
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R. Coronel and T. Opthof
The role of the reviewer in editorial decision-making
Cardiovasc Res, August 1, 1999; 43(2): 261 - 264.
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