New Editorial Board - a new start

Beginning in January 2011 I am privileged to take over the position of Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Gastroenterology. On behalf of all the members of the new Editorial Board I would like to thank the Governing Board of the Hellenic Society of Gastroenterology for giving us the opportunity to work for this Journal. The new Editorial Team of Annals of Gastroenterology comprises four Assistant Editors who will assist me in this hard task and 31 Section Editors, all selected as the most experienced scientists and clinicians in the field of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in Greece. Moreover, we’ll be supported by four experienced Statistical Advisors. I am confident that all the members of the Editorial Board will work hard in order to improve our Journal. The editorial team is supported by Advisory Board Members, who contribute by offering new ideas to render the Journal more attractive and scientifically competitive. Our goal is to broaden the excellent work done by the former editorial staff by increasing the Journal’s international profile, and providing readers with a more readable and interdisciplinary content. Annals of Gastroenterology was recently reviewed by the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee (LSTRC) for inclusion in Medline. Unfortunately the indexing priority assigned to the Journal was not enough for the title to be indexed by the Library at that time. The inclusion criteria of LSTRC have as critical elements the quality of the content, the quality of the editorial work, and the quality of the production. We have to work hard in all these parameters in order to succeed next time. The new Editorial Board decided that the quality of the editorial processes should be improved and that our publications should follow the international standards. Therefore, the guidelines for the manuscripts set out in “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/) were adopted for our Journal. Any paper published in Annals of Gastroenterology that is a randomized controlled trial, observational study, diagnostic accuracy study, systematic reviews or meta-analysis should follow the established international guidelines (see new guidelines of the journal). The main priority of the new editorial board is to demonstrate features that contribute to the objectivity, credibility, and quality of the Journal contents. A quick peer review process, with strict limits and monitoring, will be offered to all papers submitted to the Journal. All papers will be published online before print, right after acceptance and galley proof correction. A number of changes for improvement of the print and electronic appearance of the Journal are under way. Some of them are apparent in this issue whereas others will appear in future issues. Our aim is a high quality Journal, publishing the best, if possible, clinical studies (from Greece and abroad), good observational data and interesting images, discussing points of view and updating our readers on recent advances, with the best reviews and relevant breaking news on the various fields of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. All the members of the Editorial Board are well aware of the ever increasing international competition in the sector of medical publications and the current difficult time for our Country. However, over the next few years we shall work hard to build up a Journal with a successful international reputation, publishing high quality research data, which will be abstracted and indexed in the main journal databases. In order to obtain this, we look forward to receiving your high quality submissions, general feedback and suggestions or criticisms for improving the Journal.