State of the Journal 2004

It is a year since I assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief of the JCE, and time to provide our readers and authors with an update on the health of the Journal. As you will see, JCE is alive and thriving. After accepting the editorship, I had but 6 weeks to develop a new editorial office, with a new policy of accepting only on-line submissions. The goal was accomplished, primarily by the incredible hard work of my managing editor Bonnie Prystowsky (yes, also my wife—now I have a boss at home and work), whom I asked to come out of retirement and apply her editorial skills to JCE. Also key to that effort was Sarah Densmore, Editorial Assistant at JCE, and Sherri Frank, Senior Editor at Blackwell. I was also aware that for the first time JCE would have direct competition from another journal with similar stated objectives. First, a sincere thank-you to the worldwide investigators and authors who submitted their work to JCE in 2004. The Journal received over 650 new submissions this year, and the quality was sufficiently high that the acceptance rate remained in the low 30% range. As an author, I am keenly aware that no one appreciates waiting months for a decision on a manuscript. We have striven hard to maintain a rapid review process, and the average time from submission to initial decision is about 3 weeks. This was made possible by the dedicated efforts of our editorial board members and other reviewers, and I thank them for their timely and thoughtful reviews. The impact factor remains strong at 2.688 for the year 2003. This places JCE at 18 out of 70 cardiovascular journals worldwide, and nearly all higher ranked journals deal with subject matter of a more general cardiovascular nature, for example, Circulation. It should be noted that the impact factor has a 2-year latency and was calculated on JCE articles published in 2001 and 2002 and cited in 2003. Thus, the current impact factor and that for 2005 reflects the labors of the