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Tom Luscher
EHJ’s Editor-in-Chief
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Those attending ESC Congress 2009 cannot fail to note the increased presence of the European Heart Journal, with simultaneous online publication of many Hot Lines and Clinical Trial Updates.
“By becoming much more interactive, the congress and EHJ are creating opportunities for real synergies which strengthen both organisations,” says Thomas F. Lüscher, the new Editor-in-Chief. Indeed the growth of the EHJ – which now publishes 22,500 hard copies every two weeks with more than 2 million downloads each year – has been inextricably linked with the success of the ESC Congress, since subscriptions are directly linked to numbers registered at the annual meeting.
Further innovations, Lüscher adds, include invitations to Hot Line and Clinical Trial Update discussants to write editorials in the journal, and for editors to seek out the best papers for publication. With the announcement in June of the EHJ's latest impact factor of 8.917, there should be cause for real celebration. “This outstanding result is a reflection of the excellent work of former editor Frans Van de Werf and his team,” says Lüscher, who took over the reins last October.
The goal now, says Lüscher, is to achieve an even better result so the EHJ can compete with its older American rivals. With an impact factor of 11, JACC is already firmly within their sights, but with an impact factor of 14 Circulation represents the long-term goal. Working with a team of five deputy editors - Josep Brugada, Patrick W. Serruys, Bernard Gersch, Ulf Landmesser, and Frank Ruschitzka – Lüscher is rising to the challenge of more original research and high quality reviews in the journal.
To this end, the team have introduced a number of key changes including the development of more formal links between the EHJ and the ESC Journal Family, (which includes Cardiovascular Research, Europace, Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, Heart Failure, Echocardiography and Cardiovascular Nursing). Most noteworthy is the direct transfer of quality manuscripts and their reviewer comments from the EHJ to a more suitable subspecialty journal, with authors guaranteed feedback within 48 hours. Although such links have also been established by US cardiology journals, Lüscher maintains that Europe has the advantage; unlike the American family, all the European journals are established for longer periods of time and they all already have impact factors.
“Transatlantic competition in the field of cardiology is a friendly rivalry," says Lüscher, "which encourages the wider cardiology community to aspire to greater heights of excellence, benefiting the global population."
To strengthen international links and send out the message that the EHJ is interested in contributions from both sides of the Atlantic and Asia, the journal has for the first time appointed a US deputy editor (Bernard Gersch) and associate editors from Canada (Salim Yusuf), Asia Pacific (Hiroaki Shimokawa and Cheuk-Man Yu) and Australasian (Henry Krum).
A new section Lüscher has introduced to the journal is “CardioPulse”, reporting on ideas of general interest, with Andros Tofield as editor. “The intention here is to produce an easy read that people can pick up on the plane, or when they're relaxing, which draws them into the journal. People are genuinely interested in the personalities behind guidelines and clinical papers,” says Lüscher.
With characteristic Swiss precision, the EHJ editorial office has undergone a drive for efficiency with the aim of reducing peer review time to 14 days. Other innovations include the commission of reviews from the big names, from a proposed database of 6,000 reviewers. “Editorial boards traditionally consist of the most establishe7d people and the editor's friends. What's really important to us is rewarding excellence and promoting the reviewers who are doing a good job,” says Lüscher.