Dear Colleagues,
As we enter the summer months, and this year’s EuroPCR becomes a very happy and productive memory, a “grand cru” as we and others often said...we look back at this last Barcelona meeting with satisfaction. Our two sessions were well received, our Journal, the official journal of the meeting and EAPCI, has clearly defined its place, all adding to a feeling that we have reached a new era of maturity as we enter our most productive year yet.
EuroIntervention @ EuroPCR
The second annual EuroIntervention awards were better attended than ever before. Along with Andrew Ong, EuroIntervention’s Deputy Pacific Ring Associate Editor and myself, we presented the selection of the best papers published in our May issue which in themselves constituted evidence of this excellent year, covering a wide range of subjects from imaging and new techniques such as OCT, pure clinical research, epidemiological analysis of drug-eluting stents in a large patient cohort and the pathology of percutaneous valves (see illustration).
Participation in our “Tips and Tricks for a successful publication” went beyond our wildest dreams. Pieter Kappetein, of The Netherlands, Deputy Editor of EuroIntervention as well as the European Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery chaired the sessions along with Giuseppe Bondi-Zoccai of Italy, known for his expertise in meta-analysis. Speakers included Stefaan Janssen of Belgium, former Deputy Editor of the European Heart Journal, who provided the tips that editors look for when papers are submitted to a journal, Peter Juni from Zurich underlining the many pitfalls inherent in statistics and Amir Lerman of the Mayo Clinic, USA who gave us insights into how to critically review a paper using some very comical examples. This session was repeated during EuroPCR, but the second time with a subtle twist; it was reworked as an interactive session. This inspired some very enlightened discussions from the attendees, including participants from outside the regular bastions of our usual Western European confines with question from Egyptian, Indian and Eastern European colleagues...and hopefully soon to be future authors.
The second annual EuroIntervention award winners at EuroPCR 2009. From left to right: Peter Barlis (Australia), Francesco Saia (Italy), Clemens von Birgelen (The Netherlands), Greg Kaluza (USA), Raoul Bonan (Canada), Professor Patrick W. Serruys, Editor-in-Chief, EuroIntervention.
EuroIntervention in the world
Our journal has been growing. Not just the move to a new issue every six weeks, but also in the quantity and quality of your relationship with us. We maintain a policy of free access to our online articles as a service to the community, and as our Journal is more and more known we can see the difference in your participation online. In December 2006 we were very proud to announce that there had been almost 121,000 visits to our EuroIntervention website, and yet now a few years and issues later, our visits as of the first of May - before EuroPCR had even begun - was well over 717,000 hits (as one says in online jargon). During that same period, PDF downloads of articles from our website grew from 28,164 in December 2006 to 195,991 in May 2009... again, before our May issue had been published and EuroPCR 2009 had even opened its doors, so you can see our Journal is increasing its appeal and our impact factor can only grow accordingly.
All this is possible only because of the collaboration of so many of you. Our editorial board, our reviewers who dedicate their time and insure the movement of submissions. Among these it is good to cite those who have done the most this past year. Leading in quantity: Alec Vahanian (France) with 15 papers reviewed, Stephan Windecker (Switzerland) and Marco Valgimigli (Italy) with 14 reviews, Ran Kornowski (Israel) and Bernard de Bruyne (Belgium) with 13. Among the fastest reviewers, the honours go to Pascal Vranckx at 1 hr 27 min for a single review, followed by Eugene McFadden (1 hr 43 min), Giuseppe Biondi-Zoccai (2 hr 45 min), Lucas van Dijk (2 hr 54 min), Fernando Alfonso (3 hr 13 min). Ron Waksman, Upendra Kaul and Bernhard Meier also were in the top 10 fastest reviewers. Their participation, as well of that of our many other collaborators, is not insignificant in the running of EuroIntervention. They have dedicated their time and effort so that this Journal can be what it is today.
We look forward to your participation as well, and welcome you warmly to this first June issue.
