On behalf of the Japanese Society of Clinical Immunology (JSCI), it is a great pleasure to announce the renewal of our official journal.
The Japanese Journal of Clinical Immunology (JJCI, also named Nippon Rinsho Men-eki Gakkai Kaishi), the official journal of JSCI, has been renamed to Immunological Medicine (abbreviated as ImmMed) from Volume 41, Issue 1, April 2018, and the journal style is changed to an open access online journal from its previous medium of paper publication.
Recent progress of clinical immunology has been remarkable. There are so many diseases and conditions that are associated with immunological abnormalities and need immunological approaches in medical fields, including autoimmune diseases, allergic diseases, infectious diseases, malignant diseases, immunodeficiency and transplantation. Clinical immunology has had more and more important roles as the bridge between basic researches and clinical practices in these fields, and the significance in translational researches is rapidly increasing in recent years. The new journal, Immunological Medicine, will be a receiver of these topics as a unique cross-sectional and interdisciplinary journal, which covers many fields.
In these situations, although JJCI has a long history of the official journal of JSCI for 40 years, JSCI aimed the internationalization of the society and decided the change of the official journal from a domestic Japanese journal to the international journal disseminating to the world.
Immunological Medicine encourages submission of manuscripts from wide range of topics in various fields such as rheumatology, allergology, oncology, hematology, respiratory medicine, gastroenterology, nephrology, dermatology, pediatrics and other medical fields that relate to both basic and clinical immunology. The article categories of our journal include review articles, original research articles, rapid communication, case reports and letters to editor.
Immunological Medicine plans the publication of 4 issues in each year. The former journal, JJCI, has been indexed in PubMed, and Immunological Medicine is expected also to be indexed continuously in the same database. The publication fee by authors of invited articles and JSCI members is free for the first three years, but this will be reconsidered after 2021.
Editorial ManagerTM, the electronic submission system of manuscripts and the online peer-review process has been constructed for Immunological Medicine. Submitted papers, including invited review articles, are subject to peer review by at least two referees and the editors. In order to accelerate the peer-review process and publication schedule, we have assigned the transmitting editor system. Transmitting editors are responsible to nominate reviewers and for decision of accept, revision or reject of the submitted manuscripts. The Editorial Board is responsible for the final decision of accept or reject, and order of publication of articles. The overall acceptance rate of submitted manuscripts in former JJCI was 80%, but this figure will be changed in Immunological Medicine.
The value of scientific journal is dependent on how many scientifically excellent articles are submitted and published. For this purpose, the impartial and rapid review system is inevitable and the ability to review articles will also be judged.
As the Editor-in-Chief of Immunological Medicine, I would like to encourage not only the members of JSCI but also non-member researchers and physicians in various fields involved in clinical immunology to submit your exciting articles.