Farewell letter from the previous Editor of RPSM

Catedrático y Jefe de Servicio de Psiquiatría, Universidad de Oviedo, Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias, ISPA, INEUROPA, CIBERSAM

At this time of change in the direction of the Journal of Psychiatry and Mental Health, the organ of expression of the Spanish Society of Psychiatry and the Spanish Society of Biological Psychiatry, and after a decade of evolution, I would like to highlight several aspects that I consider fundamental:

Firstly, the rewarding and motivating proposal of my appointment, in 2008, to these editorial functions, by the two presidents of the Spanish Society of Psychiatry and the Spanish Society of Biological Psychiatry, Professors Vallejo Ruiloba and Giner Ubago, respectively. A scientific activity that I have found very productive and challenging.

It has been a very enriching and formative period in publishing and one that is not easy to acquire and undertake, since there is no recognised formal training and there is currently no specific area of training. Despite this, it has enabled me to meet highly competent people in the field and enter a very wide field with little relationship between national and international publishers. For this reason, a series of international biennial meetings have been designed with the editors of neuroscience journals. I want to thank all these editors for their patience in my first steps and their information on how competitiveness moves in this scientific field and also thank many of them for their friendship.

Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the global support achieved since the initial issue, October-December 2008, when it was agreed that Professor D. Julio Vallejo Ruiloba would be Director. In those years, we had long experience with the journal "Psiquiatría Biológica", at the time when it was not an indexed journal nor intended to obtain an impact factor and in which Dr José Manuel Menchón Magriñá invested great effort and many hours, making the work of the Scientific and Editorial Committees much easier.

The Editorial Committee has remained fairly stable over this decade, not requiring major changes, thanks to the commitment and joint efforts that all its members have contributed to this impact publishing project. I would especially like to thank Dr Pilar Alejandra Saiz Martínez and Dr José Manuel Crespo Blanco for their excellent contribution as Associate Editors in recent years.

All the achievement and editorial prestige achieved, both nationally and internationally, has undoubtedly been due to the high level of Spanish psychiatry and the prestige and productivity of the clinical and translational professionals. The essential work by prestigious neuroscientists cannot be overlooked, who have meticulously undertaken the reviews of all the proposals received. My full recognition goes to the authors of the articles and for the reviewers, without whom a journal of the highest competitive level (fifth among Spanish medical journals in 2019) within the medical field in Spain and internationally would not have been possible.

I want to thank the Presidents and respective Boards of Directors of the SEP and SEPB, who have awarded me their full confidence and support in my work at the head of the Journal of Psychiatry and Mental Health.

For the Revista de Psiquiatría y Salud Mental it was essential to be able to rely on a highly efficient and widely established company worldwide, since it publishes the most journals in the medical scientific world, with top level advisors and collaborators, especially Mr José Alonso and Ms Ángeles Hernández.

Having in this past decade been indexed in all the most prestigious databases and placed in the second quartile (Q2) of Psychiatry journals in the Journal Citations Report-Web of Science, with a 2018 impact factor of 2,927, the challenge for the journal is to become a first quartile journal.

Therefore, as agreed at the review meetings in recent years, a second journal will be generated, with a different editorial team and a more humanised and clinical focus, under the Free Science Space movement and Plan "S", supported by the Horizon 2020 research programme (Science Europe).

I hope that the new Director, Dr D. Benedicto Crespo Facorro achieves even greater collaboration than I have, and that the new editorial team continues to flourish.

Oviedo, 31st March 2020