A rapid look at last years’ performance of Neuroendocrinology indicates that the journal is doing well. In 1998, the number of submissions rose by 11% over 1997, due to a higher flow of manuscripts from Europe, while contributions from other regions remained stable. In parallel, our efforts towards disciplinary diversification have been fruitful: manuscripts addressing physiological issues still represent the largest share of the journal (41% of published articles), but molecular neuroendocrinology, neuroanatomy, cell biology, and clinical studies are on the increase. In addition, almost 10% of the 1998 articles dealt with the emerging field of neuroendocrine correlates of food intake, in particular hormonal or hypothalamic effects of leptin.

Average initial refereeing time was 58 days (18 days for the second evaluation). Publication time from the day of reception to the day of publication has been 7.25 ± 0.25 months (excluding a few manuscripts submitted to more than o ne revision). Rapid Communications were published in an average of 3 months.

The 1998 impact factor (which reflects citations in 1996 and 1997 of articles published in 1995 and 1996) is stable around 2.5, but comparison of its yearly components is encouraging: it shows a 0.8 increase in the ratio < quotes/number of pu blished articles > between 1995 and 1996.

In the absence of a real ‘market’ for the scientific literature, impact factors offer a good way to measure the audience of a journal, by providing information on the behavior of ‘consumers’ of scientific results. But they have to be used with caution. Based on average number of quotes, they do not reflect performances of individual articles: for instance 9% of Cell papers published in 1992, 16% of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science papers, and 52% of those of the European Journal of Physiology have not been quoted in the two years following their publication. In this respect also, the performance of Neuroendocrinology has improved between 1995 and 1996, since the number of articles with 1 quote or less has decreased from 59 to 37% (the proportion of never quoted papers even fell from 52 to 12%). The ten most cited 1996 articles were quoted 137 times, vs. 96 for those published in 1995. Four of the most cited 1996 papers deal with stress – in relation to neuroactive steroids (the most quoted paper), gaba receptors or strain-dependent responsiveness; three with characterization and functions of hypothalamic NO synthase; and three with actions of brain steroid receptors.

If one considers only primary experimental journals (i.e. not taking either review or purely clinical journals into account), Neuroendocrinology ranks number 10 among publications in endocrinology (out of over 100), and number 32 in neurosciences (out of over 150). But other bibliometric indices are also of interest: for instance, among all experimental journals in neurosciences with an impact factor gre ater than 2.0, Neuroendocrinology has the fifth highest citation half-life.

Impact factors cannot really be compared between different areas of science. Among multidisciplinary journals for instance, only three are rated very high (Nature, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, at 27.3, 24.7 and 9.0, respectively); impact factors of all others are equal or inferior to 2.0. In life and health sciences, the ten m ajor primary journals have impact factors ranging from 12.6 to 27.5 (Cell), whereas in physics only one primary journal passes the 5.0 mark.

Other biases are due to the absence of correction for the quality or the editorial policy of the quoting journal, although these may have very different quoting practices – or different inclinations to fashionable topics. On the other hand, self-citation is only taken into account on the first author ’s names (for instance, quotation of Greene and Smith by Smith and Greene is not recorded as auto-citation).

It is also clear that journals serving smaller disciplinary communities – as Neuroendocrinology for instance – have a more limited readership than multidisciplinary journals, read and quoted by several scientific communit ies. This logically reflects the fact that conceptual breakthroughs or major discoveries are attractive to wider audiences. Most breakthroughs, however, are only made possible by previous accumulation of less spectacular, technical observations, which set the scene for a subsequent discovery. Much technical work is also a prerequisite to validation, and assessment of the degree of generality, of a new discovery. For these reasons, specialised journals with an average impact factor have still an important role to play on the scientific scene.

The editors and the editorial board wish you a most fruitful and enjoyab le New Year. Claude Kordon, Paris  

1999
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