A Message to the Readers of Neuropediatrics

Dear Readers, Dear Colleagues,

The year 2015 has been a busy and productive year for Neuropediatrics. The journal is thriving and growing in many different aspects.

The number of submitted articles rose from 201 (2014) to 241 (2015), corresponding to an increase of 20% in a single year.

The average turnaround time of articles from submission to the decision was significantly reduced from 40 days in 2014 to 29 days in 2015. From the editorial point of view, this resembles the most significant improvement. A cordial thank you to reviewers and the Thieme staff.

We have successfully initiated a series of review articles that are timely, and in many instances, directly at the top of the field they cover. We will try to continue this production flow over the coming year. Neuropediatrics is truly an international journal. Submissions and published articles came from 34 countries in 2014, and from 37 countries in 2015.

The impact factor of the journal increased to 1.24 (2014). This number is still in a modest order of magnitude, but has risen by 20% in 1 year. In this respect, it may be noted that the number of submitted original scientific studies is also gradually rising. We are hopeful that this tendency will continue over the coming years. The policy of our journal to ask for submissions of high scientific quality, and to allow only for case reports with outstanding scientific or clinical significance, forced us to a more critical attitude in 2015. While in 2014 only about 20% of submissions were not sent out for peer review, in 2015 this number increased to almost 30%. After a completed review process our overall acceptance rate remained virtually unchanged at 35% in both years. Allow us a short reflection on this issue: We know that it is an extremely painful experience to receive a final rejection. This constantly happens to all of us, and the pain and disappointment it inflicts does not ameliorate with increasing age or practice in the field. However, it may be a consolation to remember that several scientific contributions, that later earned the Noble prize award, were rejected when first submitted.[1] [2] Amongst the pitiable were scientists such as Hans Krebs and his work on the citric acid cycle, to name just one prominent example. Therefore, it clearly remains the task of reviewers and editors to provide their criticism in a productive and helpful fashion to increase the quality of the original submission and avoid discouragement of the authors. We will again try to live up to this claim in 2016.

“Videos in Neuropediatrics” and “Images in Neuropediatrics” are two newly introduced formats that will appear over the next months. It is our plan to include one of these two in each published issue. Both are accounted for as scientific submissions and therefore are rewarded with a regular impact factor in case of publication. Formal requirements are: no abstract, word count 100 to 200 words, three images, maximum one table, and maximum five references. An informed consent letter signed by parents and children (if applicable) is a prerequisite. Please start submissions!

We thank our loyal readers and wish you all a healthy and productive 2016!

• References

• 1 Campanario JM. Not in our nature. Nature 1993; 361: 488
• 2 Campanario JM, Acedo E. Rejecting highly cited papers: the views of scientists who encounter resistance to their discoveries from other scientists. J Am Soc Inf Sci Tech 2007; 58: 734-743