Today we celebrate a landmark event for the European Stroke Organisation: the impact factor of the European Stroke Journal (ESJ), which is an official publication of the ESO, turned 5.894!
Why is the impact factor important?
Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information and Irving H. Sher first introduced the term “impact factor” to help select additional source journals (1). In 1969 Garfield and Irving sampled the Science Citation Index to create the first published ranking by impact factor even before the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) appeared. The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a journal-level metric calculated from data indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection and JIF can be calculated after completing the minimum of 3 years of publication (2). The JIF complements expert opinion and informed peer review.
The history and the aims of the European Stroke Journal
ESJ (3) was launched in 2016 and now is a fully peer-reviewed journal which is regularly publishing original research papers, large clinical trials results and clinical guidelines which neurologists from entire Europe then implement in their practice. The scope of the ESJ topics is large and it includes the hyperacute phase of stroke, pathophysiology and treatment in this phase, modern diagnostics, common and rare stroke etiologies, peculiarities of the thrombolysis and thrombectomy use in the acute phase, primary and secondary prevention. A significant part of publishing in ESJ is presented by basic research with the translation of experimental findings into clinical practice. Epidemiology of non-infectious diseases including stroke is a very current public health topic which is also covered by contributors to the ESJ.
We should also mention that ESJ has the finding from the organization of the stroke pathways and services, Roadmap for stroke implementation results and public health programs in stroke recognition. Representatives of the ESO EAST, which is one of the ESO projects for the improvement and harmonization of the stroke services, also contributed to the ESJ in the last 5 years sharing the excellency of their activities which they lead with the collaboration with ESO experts in their home countries.
ESO Members and independent authors have the opportunity to contribute to the “Letter to the Editor” in the volume of the 750 words, expressing their agreement or contradictory opinions regarding already published papers.
ESJ is a rapid publishing platform with a high quality peer-review
We want to bring into attention that ESJ is a platform for the rapid and high quality publications which are reviewed carefully by teams of reviewers with different sub-specializations in stroke research, that is why publication in ESJ is highly competitive. The ESJ editorial team has developed excellent cooperation with sister organisations such as the World Stroke Organisation and the International Journal of Stroke, and the American Heart Organization/American Stroke Association and the journal Stroke (3). Issues are published 4 times a year (March, June, September and December) and articles are published OnlineFirst prior to issue publication. The ESJ is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (4).
One more time congratulations to all the editorial team, authors and readers!
References:
- Garfield E. The History and Meaning of the Journal Impact Factor. JAMA. 2006;295(1):90–93. doi:10.1001/jama.295.1.90
- Sharma M, Sarin A, Gupta P, Sachdeva S, Desai AV. Journal impact factor: its use, significance and limitations. World J Nucl Med. 2014 May;13(2):146. doi: 10.4103/1450-1147.139151. PMID: 25191134; PMCID: PMC4150161.
- European Stroke Journal. Aims and Scope. https://journals.sagepub.com/aims-scope/ESO
- COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) https://publicationethics.org/about/our-organisation
ESO aims to improve stroke care by providing medical education to healthcare professionals and the lay public. Learn more about our mission to reduce the burden of stroke here.
Want to join us at ESOC 2023? Click here to get the latest information about the event.
