Board meeting, Lisbon, October 2011

ARTICLE

ejd.2011.1603

Auteur(s) : Jean-François Nicolas

left to right:

C Kowalewski, L Braathen, M Gonçalo, A Nosbaum, G Zambruno, L Feldmeyer, J Kanitakis, T Torres, J Messenger, M Jonkman, J-F Nicolas, S Karpati, A Pierini, R Happle

The Annual General Meeting of the European Journal of Dermatology was held as usual during the EADV congress, which this year took place in Lisbon, Portugal. We are proud to report that the Impact Factor has again increased (to 2.421), as has the ranking of the EJD among Dermatology journals (15/55 for the Impact Factor). The number of submissions continues to rise, with a total of 777 in the past 12 months (compared to 643 the year before, and only 345 four years ago). The number of published articles has also risen, mainly due to the increase in number of correspondence papers accepted (258 in volume 21, compared 192 in volume 20) and investigative reports (52 in volume 21, compared to 29 in volume 20). More than half of papers submitted have to be rejected.

The EJD continues to interest authors from all corners of the globe: from Taiwan to Mexico, and Egypt to Bulgaria, to name but a few. Countries submitting for the first time ever this year included Albania, Rumania and the Yemen. The most prolific authors remain those in Japan and Italy, who have tripled their submissions over the past four years. The biggest increase, however, (× 7) was in submissions from Portugal.

This increase in the work load led to the introduction of a 50 € submission charge, with effect from May 2011. The page charges for published papers remain 150 €, which are low in comparison to many other journals.

The new rubric, Residents’ Corner, has had a very successful year. Under the editorial leadership of Dr Audrey Nosbaum and with help from Galderma for distribution to most European residents, we are succeeding in encouraging the interest of the next generation in dermatology journals and have had many more contributions from residents than can be included in the section.

This year was the twenty-first of the journal, founded in Lyon in 1991, by Jean Thivolet. Sadly it was also the year when he left us. As you will have seen in the “Tribute to Jean Thivolet” in a past issue of the EJD [1], he was greatly appreciated and will be missed worldwide.

The time has also come for other changes. After 21 years as co-editor, then editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Dermatology, it is now time for me to concentrate on my other activities. I have greatly enjoyed the experience and am proud of the remarkable success of the EJD, which is, of course, a reflection of the hard work of all the Board Members, co-editors, authors, reviewers and readers of the journal.

Jean Kanitakis has agreed to take over as editor-in-chief, keeping the traditional home of the EJD in Lyon. He has been a board member since 1997 and more recently a co-editor. I wish him every success in his new role.

Thank you to everybody, authors, readers, reviewers, board members – you all contribute to the success of our journal.

To all our readers and authors, the whole world over, we wish an active and productive 2012.

I wish to thank Jean-François Nicolas and the all members of the editorial board of the EJD for trusting me with the position of the next editor-in-chief of our journal. We all realize how much work Jean-François Nicolas has undertaken in order to efficiently run the journal over several years, from the very beginning of its creation in 1991 by the founding editor, Pr Jean Thivolet, whose sad loss we mourn this year. Under his leadership the quality of the journal has significantly improved and the EJD is now ranked amongst the top journals in Dermatology, in an era of fierce bibliographic competition. Jean-François Nicolas will assume a new role as associate editor, and I am sure he will continue to be an essential person for the journal. My warm thanks go also to our editorial secretary, Jenny Messenger, with whom I have had the pleasure of working over several years, her help has been invaluable and although she will gradually reduce her activity she will continue to assure the linguistic accuracy of the papers appearing in the EJD.

I realize how difficult the task is to be the editor of a prestigious journal such as the EJD. I will make every effort to keep on improving the journal, and I know I can count on the help of all the members of the editorial board. My anticipated thanks go to them, and also to the authors, reviewers and readers of the journal, who all contribute to its success.

Jean KANITAKIS

Reference

1. Nicolas J-F. Tribute to Jean Thivolet. Eur J Dermatol 21(6): 835-43.