This being the last issue of the year the first and most pleasurable duty of the Editor is to thank all those who have contributed to the journal. This is a formidable list! Those submitting articles for publication naturally have their names attached to the articles themselves, and of course are the foundation of the journal on which the rest relies. Towards the end of the issue is the list of those that have contributed to the peer review process. They contribute hugely to the journal. Readers may not appreciate that many of the articles go through several stages of review. This reflects the policy of the journal to aim to improve articles to a publishable standard rather than to summarily reject at the time of first submission without this opportunity. I am therefore especially grateful to our reviewers for taking the extra time to provide constructive suggestions to improve submissions in addition to providing peer review of the scientific content. Last and not least thanks to the editorial office staff, the Associate Editors and Deputy Editor – all to be found on the frontispiece of all issues, and of course the staff at Informa, our publishers.
The journal continues to enjoy an excellent relationship with the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, so is naturally disappointed that the SBNS bid to host the World Congress in 2017 was not successful. A number of members of the society put a lot of effort into the bid. The process involves producing a comprehensive “bid” document. This must detail not only the facilities that must be provided for a successful scientific meeting – you would hope this would be the most important issue – but also provide confidence to the WFNS that the financial structure of the meeting is sound. The importance of this – apart from the obvious need to avoid debt – is to provide income to the WFNS to allow it to fulfil its objectives of promoting neurosurgery worldwide, and especially in those countries that are less fortunate in economic terms – though currently you have to wonder who exactly that includes! The US has had its credit rating reduced and, as I write this, another round of crisis talks regarding the Eurozone economy is drawing to a close. All of these arrangements require approval – following a site inspection – from the officers of the WFNS. This all has to be achieved against a budget, making sure – bearing in mind the charitable status of the SBNS – that necessary expenses are reasonable and could stand scrutiny if required. Those who drew up the bid to these principles are to be applauded even though ultimately unsuccessful; meanwhile, congratulations to Istanbul who were successful.
This issue contains once more an ecletic mix of items that I hope the reader will find interesting, even those not directly related to their own sub-speciality. The current climate is of ever increasing sub-specialisation, but I continue to think it important that the journal can provide insights in to a wide scope of areas – I feel this includes not only general reviews, but also more specific items to enable practitioners to gain advantage from the methods in which other specialities are approaching their own problems and issues. There is also an amount of correspondence that I am always glad to receive as it encourages continuing debate around the subject matter of the articles previously published.
The journal has in recent months approved more articles for publication than it has space for so there is now a backlog for the print editions. I am grateful for the patience of authors. In the meantime, we are planning to slightly change the format of the journal to allow us to include more material in the same space, and look further into means that will allow us to include more articles. This should allow the journal to address the backlog and to avoid having to increase the threshold for publication simply due to pressure for space.
You will be reading this in December so it remains to wish you all seasons greetings and best wishes for the new year – but there's one more thing – in the New Year the journal has plans to move into the electronic age and become available to subscribers on the move via smartphones and so forth – more news on this in the first edition of the new year!
Paul Eldridge
Editor-in-Chief
Obituary
The British Journal of Neurosurgery notes with regret the passing away of Mr J Singh, formerly consultant neurosurgeon at the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary earlier this year. Our condolences naturally go to his family and colleagues.