and expertise to support our journal. ... societies will support the award jointly with the publisher, ... 2013 â cross your fingers â your ticket to Barcelona may be.
ANDROLOGY
ISSN: 2047-2919
EDITORIAL
doi: 10.1111/j.2047-2927.2013.00179.x
Entering the second year of the transatlantic Andrology collaboration 1
Ewa Rajpert-De Meyts and 2Douglas T. Carrell
1 Department of Growth and Reproduction, Copenhagen University Hospital (Rigshospitalet), Copenhagen, Denmark, and 2Departments of Surgery (Urology), Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Human Genetics, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
As the year turns, we look back at the first year of the existence of Andrology, a new journal created and overseen jointly by the European Academy of Andrology (EAA) and the American Society of Andrology (ASA) after the two organizations have decided to merge their prior journals, International Journal of Andrology (Int J Androl) and Journal of Andrology (J Androl). We also look forward to meeting new challenges ahead and improving the journal for the benefit of our readers. In our first editorial in the inaugural issue of Andrology published in January 2013, we presented the main reasons behind the merger and our goals, which have been simple: to provide a rapid, honest and fair review of submitted manuscripts and continue to advance the quality and impact of the journal (Carrell & Rajpert-De Meyts, 2013). We elaborated on our mission statement in several subsequent editorials published during the year. So, did we achieve these goals? Only time and evaluation from the andrology community and our readers will tell. But we are proud of the first achievements of the new journal and present here just a few facts. Since the opening for submissions in April 2012, the journal has received approximately 700 articles (290 in 2012, and >400 in 2013). On average, those manuscripts were processed from submission to the final decision within less than 30 days, and only a handful were ‘stuck’ for longer than 6 weeks, mainly because of difficulties in finding a suitable reviewer. Most of our editors and reviewers are a dedicated bunch of professionals and we take the opportunity to thank them, in particular our intercontinental team of Associate Editors: Elisabetta Baldi, Gail Cornwall, Kate L. Loveland, Gail Prins, John Aitken, Tadashi Baba, Arthur Burnett, Gert Dohle, Aleksander Giwercman, Peter J. O’Shaughnessy, Rodolfo Rey, Armand Zini and Michael Zitzmann. We thank also all the reviewers who devoted their unpaid time and expertise to support our journal. We believe that good reviewers are worth their weight in gold and we placed them on our own short list to sainthood; yes - they are that important! So, we use this opportunity to list here the most dedicated and busiest reviewers, who since the launch of Andrology evaluated more than six submissions each (some as many as 16!): Kenneth © 2013 American Society of Andrology and European Academy of Andrology
€ rndahl, Monica Muratori, Con Aston, Michael Eisenberg, Lars Bjo Mallidis, Mona Bungum, Dimitrios Goulis, David Handelsman, Francesco Lotti, Ilpo Huhtaniemi, Stefan Schlatt, Don Conrad, Carlos T. Da Ros, Ahmed El-Sakka, Kelvin Davies, Loredana Gandini, Nancy Brackett, Nina Davis, Chun-hua Deng, Peter Liu, William Brant, Trine Haugen, Sheena Lewis, Peter Schlegel, Robert McLachlan, Alberto Ferlin, Emmanuele Jannini, Cristian O’Flaherty, Adrian Pilatz, Rafael Oliva, Carol Podlasek and Wolfgang Weidner. Our pledge was to publish only high-quality articles and we have accepted only a bit more than a quarter of submissions; in total 122 articles. We have decided not to compromise quality for quantity, even though our page budget (200 pages per issue) has not been exhausted during the first year of operation. We would like to publish more and we hereby appeal to our readers – please submit your best original studies and review articles to Andrology. As an added incentive for the authors, the respective councils of EAA and ASA have decided to follow the tradition of Int J Androl and establish the Andrology Award. The award will be given to a publication of high quality, which should be an original article, published in Andrology within a given year, which will be selected by the Board of Associate Editors and the Chief Editors from the papers nominated by the entire Editorial Board. The awardee will be the leading author, who may be either the first or the last (senior) author on the chosen article. The award will include the reimbursement of the travel cost to an official meeting organized by EAA or ASA and may include an oral presentation, depending on the content of the publication. The award will be announced at a European Congress of Andrology in even numbered years, and at an Annual Meeting of ASA in odd years. The respective societies will support the award jointly with the publisher, Wiley-Blackwell. The first Andrology Award will be announced at the 8th European Congress of Andrology which will be held in Barcelona, Spain, on October 15–17, 2014. So if you have published a good article in the first volume of Andrology in 2013 – cross your fingers – your ticket to Barcelona may be coming soon! Andrology, 2014, 2, 1–2
1
ANDROLOGY
E. R.-D. Meyts and D. T. Carrell
The journal is an ever evolving venture. This year we introduce a new feature entitled ‘Lessons Learned in Andrology’ where our ‘elders’ will share their wisdom with the ‘young’ scientists entering the field. See the first assay in the series within this issue, written by Professor M. Okabe. We hope to make the journal more attractive to the readers and invite you to send your comments. We are planning to open a ‘Readers’ Corner’ on the journal’s website, so watch this space!
2
Andrology, 2014, 2, 1–2
We have had a good first year and are looking forward to editing the second volume of Andrology. We are optimistic for the future of and ask you to support the journal.
REFERENCE Carrell DT & Rajpert-De Meyts E. (2013) A new era of ‘Andrology’. Andrology 1, 1–2.
© 2013 American Society of Andrology and European Academy of Andrology
