An expected fusion

The journals Endocrinología y Nutrición and Avances en Diabetología merge. The Boards of Directors of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (SEEN) and the Spanish Diabetes Society (SED) had been analyzing for some time the possibility of their merger, which has finally been confirmed by the last step required, which was final approval by the SED assembly during its recent meeting at Valencia. The SEEN had already approved the merger at its 2014 meeting, also held in Valencia. This is, in our view, a historical milestone in the scientific life of both societies intended to give the new journal a greater chance of facing the current competitive situation with the hope of growing and improving both the contents and quality. Only a journal with ambition that intends to have a stronghold among international journals can have a chance to survive in the future. On the other hand, we think this is a legacy and a moral obligation of the generation of members of SED and SEEN currently responsible for running both societies with our younger colleagues, who will take charge of our professional and scientific heredity in a few years.

Spain has made in the past 15 years a very substantial progress in term of visibility and scientific impact, with an increasing prominence of diabetologists, endocrinologists, and other professionals belonging to SEEN and SED in PubMed and in the best journals worldwide. This is therefore a favorable time to rely on the current critical Spanish mass and launch the common project to place a Spanish journal among the leading international publications in the fields of endocrinology, diabetology, nutrition, and obesity. The visibility and presence of the two publications now merging, Endocrinología y Nutrición and Avances en Diabetología, was already on the right track thanks to the efforts of the last scientific editorial teams of both and to the zeal of the respective Boards of Directors to achieve progress of their journals. In this regard, simultaneous publication in Spanish and English, despite the increased costs involved, has increased interest in their contents, as shown by a constant increase in online downloads of articles from all parts of the world, including non-Spanish speaking countries. English is the universal language in research, and it was therefore indispensable to use it in our journal, and particularly in the new merged journal. It was thus decided to continue publication in both Spanish and English because of the great interest in our publications in Latin American countries. On the other hand, in this era of digital, immediate communication, scientific journals are no longer the voice of professional societies, as they have been replaced by websites, electronic newsletters, and electronic mails to all of their members. Journals should therefore have their own life, which should be scientific only. This is the only argument that can warrant their existence.

Both Endocrinología y Nutrición and Avances en Diabetología were making substantial progress in the road to standardization, which should lead to achievement of the recognized impact factor. In this regard, Endocrinología y Nutrición (in its pre-merger format) has requested this month of June inclusion in the Journal Citation Reports of Thomson Reuters in order to have an impact index. Although the evaluation period of a journal by Thomson is not clearly established and varies widely, we hope to have a resolution in less than two years thanks to the synergy resulting from the merger of both journals and to the expected increase in journal citations by authors from both societies in their international publications. Based on the self-assessment theoretical exercises we have been doing, such report should indicate that our impact factor would be clearly higher than 1.0 and, probably, close to 1.3 in the calculation for 2014. Once this has occurred, the name of the journal will be changed to Endocrinología, Diabetes y Nutrición; this will possibly lead to a subsequent recalculation of the impact factor, but we will already be on the way to consolidate our factor and to reach the level of other Spanish journals having impact factors. For this purpose, it is very important that during 2015, and in the coming years, we are very conscious of all actions required to support this new stage of the merged journal.

It should finally be noted that, among the positive points of this expected merger, the financial support that will be provided to the journal by the two societies, each of which will own 50% of the journal, will also allow for sharing the increasingly burdensome publication expenses at a time when resources are more difficult to obtain than ever.

We are thus starting a new and exciting stage with a renewed scientific journal intended to become not only a national reference in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Nutrition, but also a journal of international renown with high scientific contents commensurate with what our country and the members of both SEEN and SED deserve.