More than 1000 new manuscripts in 2017

Last year, I waited until 18 December 2017 to start writing this editorial. The number of submitted new manuscripts to Acta Oncologica during 2017 had then passed 1000. A few years earlier, I started writing the editorial for the coming year in September, anticipating that more 1000 manuscripts would be submitted [1]. Although close, my anticipation was not correct; close but not close enough, or literally translated from Swedish ‘close shoots no hare’.

Anyhow, this is good news for the journal, since it is the first time it happens in Acta’s over 50-year history. Prior to 2005, about 200 or fewer manuscripts were received each year. As I wrote in one of my first editorials in Acta Oncologica as a rather new editor-in-chief, having learned that you should ‘tell all good news as soon as possible’ during a course for editors [2], I thought this could be the first message of the present editorial. In 2016 [3], I eluded to the expression again when the journal impact factor (JIF) had reached all-time high, or 3.730.

Acta Oncologica has since the year 2000 supported more than 16 scientific symposia within different areas, although they often have dealt with different aspects of advanced radiotherapy and cancer survival. The symposia attract many articles and are behind some of the increase in the number of submissions. They also have high scientific quality and published articles from the symposia are on average more frequently cited than articles published outside the symposia. During 2017, articles from three symposia were published, also a record. The first was the fourth European Cancer Rehabilitation Symposium, ECRS (the 14th Acta Oncologica Symposium, manuscripts submitted during 2016) [4], the second the fourth symposium organized by the Nordic Association for Clinical Physics (NACP) [5] and the third the symposium dedicated to aspects of Biology-Guided Adaptive Radiotherapy (BIGART, the 15th Acta Oncologica Symposium) [6]. During 2017, submissions were also received to the 16th Acta Oncologica symposium, celebrating the 40-year anniversary of the Danish Breast Cancer Group, DBCG, published in issue 1 2018 [7].

The increasing number of manuscripts during the past decade most likely reflects increasing research activities with globally many more active researchers together with requirements to publish to get grants and positions (publish or perish). The number of scientific articles has increased more or less exponentially during many decades. It is possible that Acta Oncologica has taken a slightly greater share of the number of articles in oncology, in spite of many recently started journals [8]. Most of you active scientists reading this editorial likely everyday get multiple (I get at least 20 a day) invitations to submit something to one of those recently started open-access journals.

To have high quality in the scientific evaluation of incoming manuscripts, you need excellent editors identifying skilled and willing reviewers and making appropriate recommendations for publication, revision or rejection. The editorial board has this excellence to evaluate a wide spectrum of articles of interest for a general oncology journal. The increase in the number of submissions requires, however, an expansion of the number of editors. During 2017, two new editors have been contracted to Acta Oncologica, both within radiation oncology. Eirik Malinen, Prof. in Biophysics and Medical Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway and Morten Hǿyer, Prof. in Clinical Oncology with special interest in radiotherapy, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark are both very welcome as editors, supporting the already strong team of radiation devoted editors, professors Jens Overgaard and Ludvig Muren, Aarhus and professor Olav Dahl, Bergen, Norway.

In December 2017, Prof. Heikki Joensuu, Helsinki, Finland left the editorial board for a position at Orion Corporation, not compatible with the position as editor of a scientific periodical. I thank Heikki for excellent work as an editor for many years and wish him good luck in his new tasks. By the time this editorial is published, we hope to have recruited a new editor covering his skills in experimental and medical oncology.

Quality of scientific periodicals can be measured in several ways, and the quality of the review process is then important. We hope that authors of manuscripts submitted to Acta Oncologica are satisfied with our work, even if rejected, either rapidly after an editorial decision is made or delayed with constructive criticism from external reviewers, potentially improving the work prior to submission to another journal. We are aware of that some authors are unsatisfied with too long handling times, but they have become much fewer than in the past. With the strengthening of the editorial board described above, the times should be even shorter and very long delays virtually absent.

Another way to measure quality is to look at the JIF, and it is without doubt important when authors decide where to send their article for publication. The higher you aim at, the greater the risk is of rejection. Even if Acta Oncologica’s JIF is only moderately high, or above 3 during recent years as opposed to below 1 some 15 years ago, the rejection rate is high or about 80% of articles not part of a symposium. My hope is that the JIF for the year 2017 will be above 4, although this will not be known until in June 2018. I will thank all authors submitting their manuscripts to Acta Oncologica for evaluation, particularly those who most likely will contribute the most to the 2017 JIF, in December 2017 having more than 10 citations each during the year 2017 [9–20].