Editorial Reflections on 2009 R

ESEARCHERSandpublishersalikeeagerlyawaittherelease of citation data. Irrespective of the significant limitations of these data, they are now an integral part of applications for grants, fellowships and promotions as well as individual CVs. For publishers and authors, citations equal impact. The IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION’s Impact Factorhasrisenmore than160% overthepastfiveyears. For the first time, the IEEE TRANSACTIONS is ranked among the top ten electrical engineering publications, based on the latest data from Thomson ISI. These data show that the journal Impact Factor in 2008 was 2.479, compared with 1.636 in 2007. While this is pleasing, more significant is the 53% increase in the total number of citations for the Transactions from 10 375 to 15 884. The total number of papers published (about 476) has remained roughly the same for the past three years. Significantpublicationmilestoneswerepassedin2009without theworld comingto anend. Pre-processingofmanuscriptswent paperless in May when the IEEE TRANSACTIONS migrated to an on-linesystem.Thefirstissuetobecompletelyassembledon-line was last November, Volume 57, No. 11. This transition was not