Clinical Nutrition is in the ‘top ten’

Clinical Nutrition is in the ‘top ten’

Clinical Nutrition (2002) 21(6): 447 r 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. doi:10.1054/clnu.2002.0608, available online at http://www.idealibrary...

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Clinical Nutrition (2002) 21(6): 447 r 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. doi:10.1054/clnu.2002.0608, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

FROM THE EDITOR

Clinical Nutrition is in the ‘top ten’ first time in the ‘top ten’ amongst journals on ‘Nutrition and Dietetics’, as it ranks the ninth journal by IF in this category. Moreover, if one excludes those journals exclusively devoted to review articles, Clinical Nutrition occupies the fifth place in the ranking. These are, of course, very good news for our journal and our Society, which we wish to share with our readers. One of the major reasons for the marked increase in IF is the inclusion of Clinical Nutrition into the Index Medicus/MEDLINE in 1998, which has contributed to increase the citation rate of the articles published in the journal. We must acknowledge that this achievement was mostly due to the excellent work of the previous editorial teams, and particularly of my predecessors in the editorship, Ron Clark, Simon Allison, and Marinos Elia. Many people during these years had helped me in my task as Editor-in-Chief. I am very grateful to the co-operation of my Assistant Editor Eduard Cabre´, to the members of the Editorial Advisory Board, and particularly to the Section Editors and Associate Editors, for their advice, suggestions and criticism, as well as to the different publishing teams that have taken care of the journal during these years for their excellent work. Also, the help of more than 400 international referees who have peer reviewed the material submitted to the journal has been invaluable. They have been always ready to be constructive in their criticism in order to help authors to improve their work and keep the scientific level of the journal. Tennis or golf players know that some of them can enter the ‘top ten’, but only a very few will be able to remain in this select group for years. The recipe to achieve such an objective includes hard work and endurance as the main ingredients. This is also the way we must follow in the future to consolidate, and even improve, the position of Clinical Nutrition in the field of international journals devoted to nutritional sciences. For this, we need the help of authors by submitting good scientific work to the journal, as well as the confidence of the readers. We promise to work hard. You the readers will judge if we succeed.

Two years have elapsed since Clinical Nutrition entered its 20s. Then, I addressed you to summarize the main achievements of our journal in those first 20 years of ‘childhood and adolescence’, as well as our goals for the future (1). Two year later seems a good time to examine how the journal has performed in its early adulthood. From 1997 to 2000, the number of non-invited papers submitted to the journal almost doubled. This growing trend has been maintained during the last 2 years, so that we expect that the submission rate will increase a further 25% by the end of 2002. Also, the origin of the papers submitted is more and more diverse. Although the bulk of manuscripts still come from Western Europe, there is an increasing number of submissions from Eastern European and non-European countries, including USA, Asia, Australia, and South America. This increasing submission rate allowed us to consolidate the journal’s size around 100 pages per issue, as compared to the 45 pages of 1997. Next year, the number of pages per issue will increase to about 115. On the other hand, efforts have been made to increase the number and quality of supplements. Accordingly, four supplements (in addition to that of the ESPEN Congress) have been published on the proceedings of different high-quality symposia held during the last 2 years. Furthermore, the 2002 Congress Supplement includes, for the first time, summaries of the educational lectures, as well as the Abstracts as usual, thus allowing for a wider diffusion of the Congress Educational Programme. Finally, the journal’s homepage has consolidated during these years. Visitors can access the table of contents and abstracts of the articles of the latest and previous issues, the titles of the accepted papers in press, as well as links with the homepages of ESPEN, the Annual ESPEN Congress, other local nutrition societies, etc. Full text articles are also available on-line for ESPEN members and subscribers. This allows access to articles shortly after they are accepted and months ahead of print publication. Each article is published online with a digital objects identifier (DOI). This is a number unique to the article and remains with it for life, no matter where it is stored, and can be used for reference purposes. Perhaps the most important achievement of the last 2 years is the sharp rise in the impact factor (IF) of Clinical Nutrition. From 1997 to 2000, the journal’s IF smoothly increased from 1.041 to 1.387. However, in 2001 (the latest published) it dramatically increased to 2.459. This means that Clinical Nutrition enters for the

Miquel A. Gassull Editor-in-Chief Spain Reference 1. Gassull M A. Clinical Nutrition is not a teenager any longer. Clin Nutr 2001; 20: 1

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