Growing Impact and Growing Submissions
Authors: Robert M. Frederickson
Journal: Molecular Therapy (2020)

Several years ago, I was attending the Annual Congress of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT) and hosted a “Meet the Molecular Therapy Editors” presentation and reception. The sibling journals had only recently been launched, and our aim was not only to introduce and explain these new members of our journal family to our European authors and reviewers, but also to provide a forum for the journal editors to meet and interact with the European gene and cell therapy community in general. I explained to the audience how we hoped that these new journals would allow us to publish a greater number of papers for our society members and the community worldwide, while at the same time continuing to reduce the accept rate at Molecular Therapy with a view to further increasing the impact factor (IF) of the latter. Interestingly I was approached afterward at a reception by an editor from a Europe-based journal family who had recently launched a new title focusing on molecular medicine. He explained that he found it quaint that we continued to place such an emphasis on IFs given the increasing move away from their use in assessing career development and progression, at least in Europe. Indeed, there had already been much talk at that time about the development of alternative metrics to assess journal and author impact over at least a decade or more. Despite such efforts and all the talk about the impending demise of the IF, it continues to be an important metric for publishers, editors, authors, and readers, with many of us awaiting with much anticipation their release at the end of June each year. That time is once again upon us, and I am happy to report yet another increase in the IF of this, our flagship title, to just a hair under 9. The sibling journals as well have all fared quite well, with IFs close to our targeted range of 5+ for these titles, and, in the case of Molecular Therapy - Nucleic Acids, a very healthy IF of 7, thanks in large part to a number of very highly cited papers from China. As I explained in an editorial last year, our journal family has seen dramatic growth in submissions and publications from Asia in general and China in particular.1Frederickson R.M. Engaging the Gene and Cell Therapy Community in China.Mol. Ther. 2019; 27: 1067Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (2) Google Scholar It is clear that this growth will continue and, as a journal family, we will continue to embrace it. At the same time, there has been much discussion lately of the pressures that many Chinese scientists find themselves under to perform with regards to publication volume and the IF of the titles in which they publish, so much so that a whole industry has been born to help authors in this effort. Unfortunately, this pressure has also led to the development of so-called “paper mills” that pump out fake papers that a few less scrupulous authors can then use to pad their resumes with a view to career enhancement or even for financial gain. Thus, the opportunity that our growth in China affords us comes with a downside, and it is clear that we must devote greater resources to familiarizing ourselves more closely with the Chinese gene and cell communities and the issue of fraud and plagiarism in science overall. We continue to recruit leading scientists throughout the various centers in China to serve as associate editors at our journals to help vet submissions, and all of our editors and reviewers must and will continue to be vigilant of this problem, which is affecting all journals serving our communities. The growing IF of Molecular Therapy and our other family members should continue to drive submissions and growth of the journal family. The journal family will likely surpass 4,500 submissions this year, and we have added additional administrative staff and additional associate editors to accommodate this growth. An IF of 9 allows us to compete with a whole new tier of journals and helps ensure that we remain an important journal family serving the gene and cell therapy community and beyond.