Dear colleagues,
It is like building a fire... there is the kindling and then its effect, when you realise the moment has arrived and you’ve past a threshold, when the life you’ve created is viable. The idea is there, like a solitary match, and then the discussions begin, that’s the kindling, and the idea becomes a flame and then a passion... and then a living entity with an existence and personality unique to it alone.
Landmarks
This issue marks the start of Volume 6, and we know that the flame is burning strongly, a bright fire and light. Five years ago we presented you with our first issue of this journal in May during that year’s EuroPCR, less than a year later, in 2006, we were a precursor in offering you our first special supplement on percutaneous valve interventions and structural heart disease, a prescient study of what was the state of the science and treatment at that time –and what has fast become a central part of our field.
We saw our speciality mature, witnessing the creation of the EAPCI, born out of a Working Group of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), and we became the official journal of this association, while EuroPCR becoming its official meeting.
We have grown steadily, producing first four, then six and eight issues a year... interspersed with a series of what we hope have proven to be useful supplements that can be seen as reference material for years to come. And now, finally, we are about to take the plunge and move to 12 editions per year... another landmark.
We have tried to keep a certain idea of quality alive in our editorial decisions and the breadth of the articles published. As you know, we are indexed in PubMed and are consciously working towards another landmark... our impact factor. The flame continues to grow!
Working together
Our success is due to our ability to work with others. This is evidenced in our Editorial Board, and also in our close collaboration with the European Heart Journal of the ESC. This collaboration is beginning to bear fruit in the many excellent articles that we can bring quickly to print. We thank again Thomas Lüscher, Editor-in-Chief of the European Heart Journal, and his team for developing with us this concept of “Euro Heart transfer papers”. Simply, these are papers of value which find themselves rejected after being reviewed by Euro Heart for either being too specialised or of a lower priority for publication there. But what is too specific for one journal is the essence of another, and these manuscripts, revised and submitted to EuroIntervention, can be quickly reviewed by our own Editorial Board. In most cases we do not require a second peer review because, when you get down to it, when we search for reviewers –and we do hunt for them– we are all (European Heart included) fishing in the same peer reviewer pond. As we said earlier, this concept of “transfer papers” is not just good for us, but allows a quicker turn around for the authors as well.
We have set a standard for our journal, which we fight hard to maintain. This standard is seen, not only in the amount of papers we receive and accept, but also in finding reviewers who are committed to what they do, and, in some cases, do it with an efficiency that astounds us. This year’s fastest reviewers were led by Deepak L Bhatt (1 hour and 44 minutes), Giuseppe Biondi-Zoccai (2 hours and 45 minutes), Lucas van Dijk (2 hours and 54 minutes), Flippo Cademartiri (2 hours and 58 minutes) and Fernando Alfonso (3 hours and 13 minutes).
Speed in reviewing is one thing, crucial in insuring the quality of our contact with you, our public, and our potential authors...but this does not mean our acceptance rate is high. Quality is synonymous with selectivity, and while at the beginning of our odyssey we accepted 60% of submissions (clinical and experimental research and also expert reviews), today the acceptance rate is 39%... and that with total submissions up by 54%. The website hits are up by 44% (as I write the total is now 1,212,084). More importantly, the PDF downloads –still free of charge– are up by an amazing 95% (the total, again as I write this, now standing at 296,275).
However, it’s not all always plain sailing. In a previous Editorial, I relayed some thoughts from one of our most prominent authors1. He described his observations on what he called the “fast food mentality” of the review process. I wrote of our difficulties in receiving timely reviews illustrating this with one particular case where we solicited nine review comments before completing the review process. Interestingly enough, Tony DeMaria, the Editor in Chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, recently described similar experiences2. He finds himself soliciting, on the average, six individuals in order to receive two reviews.
Innovative sections
Do you remember “How should I treat?” Well, it’s back! After a concerted effort by our editorial staff and authors, we are on-track again with one in this current issue on “How should I treat – a tortuous calcified right coronary artery” and another two available online. This series has proven an interesting and challenging forum for exchanging different treatment modalities, and we are pleased that we are able to offer it to you again.
This is also true for our special educational section which we launched last year, “Tools and Techniques”, where a dynamic blend of print and, above all, online resources, helps you, the junior members of our speciality, find a clear explanation of critical basic techniques in interventional medicine, with, again, emphasis on a very unabridged reference version online.
On beyond our Journal
The flame is indeed burning brightly.
Soon – we hope around the time of the European Society of Cardiology meeting in early September – we will be publishing our first two books. We begin with one by Javier Escaned entitled “Coronary artery stenosis. Imaging, structure and physiology”, followed by Manel Sabaté’s “Percutaneous cardiac interventions beyond stenting. Tips and tricks for new technology”.
To speak of the immediate present, we have just published two special supplements, one on imaging with Guest Editors Jeroen Bax (who was the chairman for the highlighted ESC programme in imaging two years ago in Vienna) and Pim de Feyter (one of the first Professors of interventional cardiology and non invasive imaging at a medical faculty). Counting over 20 articles, we hope that this supplement will be, like its predecessor in valve treatment, both a survey of the science as it exists today, and prescient of the crucial role imaging will play in the future of our speciality. You only need to read the EAPCI column of Carlo Di Mario to see the increasing importance of this speciality within our speciality, seeing how expertise in the specific cardiovascular interpretation of these images will become, itself, a recognised discipline with its own series of courses and accreditation.
Our other supplement that we are publishing at this time, is an essential tool for navigating EuroPCR, the Abstract book of the current meeting, including more than 350 entries as well as those from the recent ground-breaking AsiaPCR.
Within, and without... the world of EuroIntervention
Our flame touches Europe as well as the world, and we are pleased to welcome two new International Editors to our board, the President of APSIC, Shigeru Saito of Japan and Darío Echeverri, current President of SOLACI, from Columbia. With these two organisations we have forged a close alliance since the beginning of our journal, and we continue to do so, with the strong representation and input from both the Asian societies and meetings and the Latin American group of SOLACI. You have often seen, in this most European of journals, articles from these other parts of the world... and you will continue to do so, fired by our interest in communicating the best in our field, worldwide.
These are the essentials, the hard work that goes into fanning the flame of this, our journal.
I can never thank enough the tireless efforts of EuroIntervention’s Editorial Board, the Associate as well as all the International Editors, and the steady commitment on the part of everyone to create the very best journal we possibly can.
Five years ago our tiny project began as an idea, to translate this idea into reality... to keep the still small flame alight, we had only three behind-the-scene workers. Tireless, yes, dedicated, without question... but still only three. One in Rotterdam, assisting me as managing editor, one with our publisher in Toulouse, and another at our graphic design house (an essential key in insuring the elegant, appealing readability, as well as the production of our finished project). Today those three are still working tirelessly... but they have grown to a full time managerial editorial staff of two in Rotterdam, two in Paris and one in Munich. Toulouse, our production hub including not only our publisher, but also our graphic design house and internet/website studio, has sometimes more than 10 individuals working to make this idea of EuroIntervention a reality.
This is what it takes to insure today that EuroIntervention reaches you.
The flame is healthy, and burning strongly as we continue into another year, continue with our bright project that now has a clear identity all its own.
As always we invite you to join us in this challenging journal, and hope to see many of you at our dedicated EuroIntervention session during the current edition of EuroPCR, in Paris on Thursday the 27th of May from noon to 14:30 in room 252A. If you cannot join us then, please continue to participate in the vibrant life of this publication as we enter our 6th volume year, submitting your papers, reading online or in print... and helping keep this vibrant flame truly alive.
