European Journal of Heart Failure 2008 10(1):1-2; doi:10.1016/j.ejheart.2007.12.003
© 2008 European Society of Cardiology
How to publish in European Journal of Heart Failure — what do we want?
Karl Swedberg
Department of emergency and cardiovascular medicine, Institute of medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, Göteborg University Sweden
Corresponding author. Department of Medicine Sahlgrenska, University Hospital/Östra, SE-41685 Göteborg, Sweden. Tel.: +46313434000. E-mail address: karl.swedberg{at}gu.se
Received December 10, 2007;
Another year as Editor-in-Chief has just ended and once again it has been a rewarding time. Not only has there been an interesting and stimulating collaboration with the Editorial Committee and the Editorial Office in Hull, but also with the many authors who have submitted their work to EJHF. Last year I summarised the frustrations of an editor, [1] fortunately this year some of these frustrations have been relieved. Due to the support we receive from the Heart Failure Association and the increased printed volume of EJHF, we have managed to reduce publication times and I am happy to announce that we will now be able to publish in print almost as fast as we can on our web-site i.e. about two months from acceptance of a manuscript. I hope this achievement will stimulate even more authors to submit their work to us. Importantly, and a source of frustration to many, we have maintained our high criteria for acceptance. Thus our rejection rate remains around 75% as the Editorial Committee demands high scientific standards for a paper to be accepted.
 |
New section
|
|---|
As we have been able to control publication time, we now plan
to include a new section in EJHF entitled "
Highlights" which
will concentrate on papers in important areas. We will start
with "acute heart failure" in the February issue. A section
on "diabetes and heart failure" is planned for May, followed
by "heart failure with preserved ejection fraction" in September.
Other planned sections will include "women and heart failure"
and "symptoms and signs in heart failure". I invite papers for
these sections, but please inform me in advance if you plan
to submit.
|
What do we publish?
|
|---|
As stated on our web-site, we aim to publish articles "to improve
the understanding, prevention, investigation and treatment of
heart failure. Molecular and cellular biology, pathology, physiology,
electrophysiology, pharmacology, as well as the clinical, social
and population sciences all form part of the discipline that
is heart failure." This is a very broad statement and obviously
includes almost anything related to heart failure. Our number
one criterion when evaluating an article is novelty followed
by scientific accuracy. Science means advancement of knowledge
by the application of scientific methods. The manuscripts we
are most interested in are those where properly applied methods
are clearly described, reported and the findings discussed.
How to get papers accepted has recently been discussed in an
article by Anthony DeMaria, Editor-in-Chief of JACC and I fully
concur with his views
[2]. Controlled experiments in a laboratory
or in a clinical intervention study are typical examples of
reports we want to see. Even though we do publish basic science
papers, most of our readers are clinical care-givers and we
are particularly interested in clinical studies where the results
can be translated into clinical practice. In 2007, we received
around 650 manuscripts, of these about 30% were rejected without
further review. We do this for two reasons. Firstly, authors
will have feed-back without delay when an acceptance is highly
unlikely. Reasons can include that a manuscript does not fit
our profile. Secondly, we need to save our reviewers for more
important manuscripts. The main delay in the decision to accept
or reject a manuscript is the reviewing process. The aim of
the review is to guide the editors in their decision; it is
not primarily a service to authors. Decisions are not only based
on the reviewers comments but also take other factors into consideration,
e.g. if we have another similar paper in the pipeline.
We receive some papers which confirm findings reported in previous studies. Even though this is part of science, our interest in these papers in most situations is relatively low because of the lack of novelty. We also receive papers where the analysis is a repetition of what the same authors have already published but presented in slightly different form. We call this "salami publication", it is not science as there is no advancement and we discourage this form of report. In the worst examples of this type of report, we have received duplicates where authors claim to report novel results from data already published but the previous publications are not even cited in the submitted manuscript. This is obviously most unscientific. Unfortunately, we have also received papers, where the results are "too good to be true" and where we have strong suspicions that proper science has not been part of the collection of results. Even though these papers are few, I strongly discourage this type of work. If revealed, it will result in dishonour not only to the author(s) and their institutions but to science itself. We have very limited resources to explore those suspicions but we do report them to the relevant institutions for further investigation. We have noted that in some Faculties, relatively little attention is paid to such suspicions which I find remarkable.
|
HEART network
|
|---|
In order to exchange information in general and to explore developments
in particular, Editors-in-Chief of the cardiovascular journals
listed in PubMed, are invited to meet during the major scientific
meetings (AHA, ACC and now also ESC) under the acronym the HEART
group. The HEART group have agreed on a statement that the participating
journals will be "alert to discovering scientific fraud and
data falsification, redundant or duplicate publication, and
plagiarism, and to adopt a uniform standard of dealing with
authors guilty of fraudulent practices ...... avoidance of false
claims of ownership, priority, by attention to previous publications".
This statement is in agreement with our publication policy as
I have outlined previously. Potentially, the identity of authors
who have been found to be involved in unscientific manuscripts
will be made known to all of these Editors. The HEART group
statement, which has been on our website since June 2007 under
"Instructions for Authors", will be published in all participating
journals in March 2008.
|
The year in heart failure
|
|---|
Scientific advancement during the last year has been considerable,
particularly the increased understanding of genetic and pathophysiologic
mechanisms of heart failure. Achievements during the past year
have been very well summarized in a recent review article by
Tang and Francis in JACC, which I encourage those of you who
want an update to read
[3]. Important from a European perspective,
and not discussed in that review, were the findings of the COACH
trial which compared different intensity heart failure management
programmes in the Netherlands
[4]. The neutral results were
a disappointment but should certainly encourage and stimulate
new approaches to evaluating and refining optimal care for patients
with chronic heart failure.
This year also saw the presentation of the results of another important study, CORONA, during the AHA with concomitant publication in the New England Journal of Medicine [5]. In CORONA, Kjekshus and co-workers report neutral but safe effects of rosuvastatin in elderly patients with very symptomatic heart failure caused by coronary artery disease. The implications of this study could be that myocardial and neurohormonal factors in symptomatic heart failure are emphasized even more, as treatment directed towards the concomitant diseased coronary arteries with a statin did not translate into improved outcomes. Optimal neurohormonal blockade remains the most important pharmacological treatment of chronic heart failure. The results of the CORONA study are also discussed elsewhere in this issue [6]. The ongoing GISSI-HF study will provide additional knowledge when presented in September 2008.
|
Recommendation
|
|---|
I hope that the rules for authorship and my general outline
of what is interesting for an Editor including the statement
from the HEART network, will be discussed internally in your
departments or research groups in order to stimulate potential
authors in their development as scientists. I also encourage
you to submit your work to EJHF, which now offers the potential
of faster publication.
|
References
|
|---|
- Swedberg K. Awaiting publication - A frustrating period for the scientist and the editor. Eur J Heart Fail (2007) 9:547.[Free Full Text]
- DeMaria A.N. How do I get a paper accepted? J Am Coll Cardiol (2007) 49:1666–1667.[Free Full Text]
- Tang W.H.W., Francis G.S. The Year in Heart Failure. J Am Coll Cardiol (2007) 50:2344–2351.[Free Full Text]
- Cleland J.G., Coletta A.P., Clark A.L. Clinical trials update from the American College of Cardiology 2007: ALPHA, EVEREST, FUSION II, VALIDD, PARR-2, REMODEL, SPICE, COURAGE, COACH, REMADHE, pro-BNP for the evaluation of dyspnoea and THIS-diet. Eur J Heart Fail (2007) 9:740–745.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
- Kjekshus J., Apetrei E., Barrios V., et al. Rosuvastatin in older patients with systolic heart failure. N Engl J Med (2007) 357:2248–2261.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
- Cleland JGF, Coletta AP, Abdellah AT, et al. Clinical trials update from the American Heart Association 2007: CORONA, RethinQ, MASCOT, AFCHF, HART, MASTER, POISE and stem cell therapy. Eur J Heart Fail (2008) (in this issue).
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
Top
New section
What do we publish?