Brain, Vol. 127, No. 1, 1, 2004
© 2004 Guarantors of Brain
doi: 10.1093/brain/awh064
A message from the Editors
We, the present editors, end our 7-year term on July 31, 2004. This period has seen some substantial changes to the journal. For authors and referees, the principal change has been our switch 2.5 years ago to online submission and reviewing. This facility, provided by ScholarOne, has been very broadly welcomed and now works well. Unfortunately, the ScholarOne site at Charlottesville suffered seriously from Hurricane Isobel in September last year, but through strenuous efforts of their staff under very difficult conditions and the rapid replacement of damaged equipment, full service was restored quickly. We would like to put on record our thanks to them.
The number of papers submitted to the journal has continued to increase, and is estimated for 2003 to be over 1000 per annum, just about double the number when we took over in 1997 and an increase of 18% on the figure for 2002. This increase may, in part, be due to the online submission facility, although we like to think that authors choose Brain because of its current high ranking among clinical neurology journals. Our impact factor has been in the range 7.1–7.4 for the last 4 years. In 2002 (the last year for which data are presently available), Brain was ranked second of 138 clinical neurology journals, and thirteenth of 197 neuroscience journals, based on the impact factor.
Because the decision has been made not to increase the size of the journal, the acceptance rate has inevitably fallen despite some shortening of the mean length of papers. However, there is no restriction on the length of data published on the web, allowing case reports, for example, to be published there when there is insufficient space in the printed version. The current acceptance rate is 20%, but some changes to the journal’s format this month will allow a small increase in the number of papers per issue without increasing the journal’s size. Pressure on space in the journal has meant that our criteria for suitability have had to become more stringent, as we set out in the Information for Authors on the Brain website.
The online facility has helped to reduce the time taken to reach the first editorial decision on a manuscript. The medians for 2001 and 2002 were 6.5 and 5.5 weeks respectively, and for the first 6 months of 2002 (the last period for which data are available) the median had fallen further to 4 weeks. Decisions during this last period were taken within 2 months for over 90% of papers received (and within 4 weeks for 60% of them). We are hugely grateful to our overworked referees who play a key role in enabling rapid decisions to be taken.
Brain Advance Access was launched in 2003 by our publishers OUP, and ‘publish ahead of print’ articles (that can be cited) have been available on the Brain website since April. This has reduced the ‘acceptance to publication’ interval which is now 8–10 weeks for the online version.
The wide geographical spread of papers received remains essentially unchanged. 63% come from Europe, 20% from North America and 17% from the Rest of the World. Not-for-profit institutes in 67 developing countries are now able to apply for free online access, either directly through OUP or through other initiatives (e.g. World Health Organisation). OUP also offer greatly discounted rates to a further 60 middle-income countries.
Finally, both of us wish warmly to thank our hard-working referees, our Editorial Board, our publishers Oxford University Press, and particularly our Assistant Editor Carol Lovelidge and Editorial Office Assistant Lubna Zafar for their support over the last 7 years.
John Newsom-Davis, Editor
John Rothwell, Deputy Editor
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