Vision and Way Forward of Indian Journal of Neurotrauma

At the outset, I would like to thank Professor (Dr.) Yashbir Dewan, our outgoing editor-in-chief of Indian Journal of Neurotrauma (IJNT), for his relentless efforts to raise the standard of the journal to what it is today.

I am also thankful to our first editor-in-chief, Colonel Professor (Dr.) H. S. Bhatoe, on whose endeavor the first issue of IJNT was published in the year 2004 and then continued twice a year till 2010. Subsequently, three issues a year are getting published. I am grateful to the Indian Society of Neurotrauma for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this flourishing Indian neurotrauma journal. The success of IJNT is due to the efforts of my predecessors and international team of editors, editorial board members, associate editors, section editors, reviewers, contributors, and the supporting staff of editorial manager of IJNT.

In the past decade and a half, I have experienced the significant positive changes in IJNT, which has led to its increased popularity. I hope to maintain this momentum while keeping pace with the constantly changing nature of neurotrauma and its care. Although I anticipate huge challenges in this dynamic era of too many scholarly journals, I am committed to improve the quality and regularity of publications and keep the journal relevant in the field.

Currently the journal is indexed to IndMed, and also indexed to Emerging Sources Citation Index, which is the initial platform at Clarivate Analytics, before consideration for an impact factor. In the past 2 years, nearly 70 original research articles from India and abroad have been published, which is really a good number from the journal's point of view, but it has to be increased subsequently. We are also publishing the basic research articles relevant to neurotrauma done by research scientists from basic departments from India and abroad. The acceptance rate of IJNT is currently only 60%. The average review time is 2 to 6 weeks, and time from submission to publication is 8 to 12 weeks. We have online publication as well as printed journals for the regular members, authors, and institutes. We aim to provide good submission experience for the authors, shorter submission to decision time, and quick response to any authors concern. We warmly welcome submissions from the scientific community and industry partners. Potential authors are encouraged to submit their articles at http://www.editorialmanager.com/ijntr/default.aspx

The journal is being publishing by Thieme Medical Publishers for the past 3 years. The technical support team from Thieme will allow the journal to expand in scope and depth and attract both traditional and emerging collaborative researchers from other fields to improve the journal recognition and quality further. Our future endeavor will be timely publication and 24 × 7 online free access to the readers and authors. Last but the most important, we have to have the journal listed in PubMed Central. It is a big task and needs sincere effort from every one of us associated with neurotrauma and the Indian Society for Neurotrauma.

Trauma is going to be the third killer disease in another decade in India, which will cost heavy loss of productive young life and enormous economic loss. As treating physicians, our mission should be to lessen this burden by proper prehospital care, quick intervention, cost-effective treatment, and proper rehabilitation. As the society is taking these points seriously by discussion, annual meetings, CMEs, symposiums, and educating the school children (the brunt bearer of trauma in the future) at grassroot level, the journal should also play a significant role in upgrading the knowledge of treating neurosurgeons by imparting newer concepts, methods, and treatment protocols through timely routine publications. With the rapidly changing therapeutic options for neurotrauma, our focus is on providing the coverage of the recent updates in IJNT to benefit the readers and contributors.

Residents, neurosurgery residents in particular (be it DNB or MCh students), in an institute or in private setup, should be encouraged during their training to do research and submit articles to Indian neurotrauma journal. As teachers, this should be our responsibility to guide and encourage the students during their formative years toward research and publications. Lastly, I humbly request all the authors and readers to provide valuable suggestions, new thoughts, and new ideas for betterment of our journal; thus, IJNT can have an impact worldwide.