Science advances mystifyingly, at a vertiginous pace, and Scientific Societies expand as the scientific production of their members escalates. RECOT, as the official body of the scientific production of SECOT is starting a new venture. This combines new faces with promising research profiles in its Editorial Committee with colleagues of recognized prestige, aiming to continue the excellent work that my predecessor, Dr. Yaiza Lópiz, already initiated, and with a clear and ambitious objective: to achieve the Impact Factor that will gain greater dissemination and prestige for our publication. The Impact Factor, as we may recall, measures the number of times that the articles published in a journal have been cited on average in a year, reflecting the significance of the publication and thus being a useful instrument to compare scientific journals in the same field.
The main work in progress of the Editorial Committee can be summed up in three core points:
- 1.
Continue demanding scientific exactingness from the accepted papers, promoting prospective studies, meta-analyses and systematic reviews.
- 2.
Update the reviewer database, optimising its agility and modernity.
- 3.
Improve the response times of submitted studies and the publication times of accepted papers.
I would like to advocate and thank the essential work of the reviewers in this exciting project. Being a reviewer of a scientific journal is an immense personal sacrifice that demonstrates great generosity towards our world of science. The review of scientific articles enriches our knowledge, keeps us updated and intellectually active, whilst simultaneously promoting critical thinking. From a curricular viewpoint, Elsevier also officially certifies this task. Notwithstanding, the rewards may seem scant compared with the time and effort spent and this is precisely what SECOT seeks to amend with new ways of rewarding this essential labour for the development of our journal. A general call for applications to join the RECOT review body has recently been published. We need colleagues equipped with enthusiasm and training to continue growing together. An important part of scientific review is theoretical training, and in this sense a new Official SECOT Course for reviewers of scientific articles will be planned for next year, a course that I hope will be of interest to most members.
As a closing note to this presentation, here at the Editorial Committee, we are not unaware of the growing concern regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the production of scientific articles. In close collaboration with Elsevier, RECOT already has means of controlling plagiarism and similarity but unfortunately, monitoring of the inappropriate use of AI in writing is practically impossible. We cannot deny the enormous impact of AI in our field, which, as we well know, affords many benefits from a scientific point of view. However, we cannot ever let this tool replace the authors’ personal, intellectual production and individual point of view. Here we can only rely upon the ethical commitment of the authors who must ensure this tool is not used for the writing of their papers – a requisite prior to the start of the editorial process.
I hope all our members will join me in this new project, their role being vital for the continued growth of our journal.
“We should not be concerned about the advance of artificial intelligence but about the decline of natural intelligence”.
