The editorial comment which opened the first issue of 2008, six years ago, was entitled “Allergologia et Immunopathologia: a step forward”1 On that occasion, as the new Editor-in-Chief, I wanted to summarise the changes that were to take place in the following months in order to make our journal competitive at international level. The comment went from the history of the journal to the new editorial board, and to the new submission system. I decided to introduce “second” in the title of the present lines in order to clarify that a third, a fourth and further steps forward are expected, both while I am still serving as Editor-in-Chief as well as when others may take on the position.
Six years after the aforementioned editorial comment, the changes experienced by the journal have been substantial: the inflow of papers submitted has increased dramatically in both number and quality; papers are now received from a much broader range of countries and are of higher quality. Additionally the prestige of the journal in terms of impact factor has doubled from 2009 to 2012, and my feelings are that it will increase even further in 2013. All those changes put together have led to much greater pressure from authors who choose our journal for their research and clinical papers. The result is that we have moved from receiving a similar amount of papers as the space available to have them published, to having four to five more original articles that could be published in the journal's printed space. In spite of the parallel increase in the rejection rate, which is currently well above 50%, there has been a certain accumulation of papers in the pipeline waiting to be published. Consequently, the time until publication for a paper has increased in the last few months. This is an unwanted side effect of the journal's success that the Spanish Society of Paediatric Allergy and Immunology seeks to amend as quickly as possible.
After recent negotiations with the publisher in order to obtain additional space for the ever increasing number of high quality articles, the best solution for both parts was to shift from the traditional printed version to the full online version, both in the classical format of pdf files (which can be read on the computer screen or downloaded), as well as in a format suitable for tablets, which the publisher is currently working on and expects to have available before the summer. The advantage of this solution is that it enables the journal to publish 22 more pages per issue, thus allowing to shorten the time to publication of the papers, which are currently in the pipeline, and above all to provide additional space for the authors. Furthermore, it was additionally decided to stop publishing research letters to, again, dedicate even more space to original articles.
As an author myself, I am fully aware that it is quite frustrating that the time from acceptance to formal publication takes several months. This situation can be tempered if publishing ahead of print works well and the papers are quickly included in the international repertoires with their respective DOI number in order to be quoted by peers, as is the case of Allergologia et Immunopathologia. However, the process of publication is not finished until a paper is allocated to a specific issue which is printed either in paper or online. Thus I appreciate the patience of many authors and would like to express my profound thanks to them. I would also like to thank them for choosing our journal as the target of their research and for the confidence of entrusting us with their work.
An additional editorial decision regarding the content of the journal has also been made: as from March 1st of the present year, papers should be focused on Paediatric Allergy and Immunology in order to be accepted. This is keeping with the spirit of the journal which is after all the official publication of a paediatric society.
In summary, I hope that this new second step forward is one which will make it possible for the Spanish Society of Paediatric Allergy and Immunology and for the potential authors to count on an even more specialised and prestigious journal in the years to come.
