We are delighted to announce the launch of JCPP Advances—a new high‐quality open access journal in the field of child psychology and psychiatry and related disciplines (bit.ly/JCPP‐Advances). This new exciting addition to the JCPP family complements the sister journal (www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jcpp) and adopts the same high standards of journal policies, principles and practices, providing researchers and clinicians with an alternative, new platform to discuss and disseminate widely, findings from high‐quality studies.
Many critical knowledge gaps surrounding important aspects of child and adolescent mental health remain to be addressed. Addressing these gaps is an important task as child and adolescent mental health problems represent a huge and growing burden for the world, both at individual and societal level. There are several reasons to be optimistic. The field has developed rapidly during the past decade. We have seen huge efforts to obtain large‐scale multi‐source data, extraordinary advances in new technologies for data collection and data analytics as well as increased implementation of open science principles and large‐scale international collaborative efforts. These recent developments have huge potential to generate scientific breakthroughs and innovation. An important goal of JCPP Advances is to substantially increase the reach and impact of such scientific advances.
Our goal is to change the way that authors experience the publishing process and help their submissions reach full potential. We will maintain rigorous evaluation of the science whilst removing unnecessary steps in the process, such as reformatting articles, and by reusing peer review feedback where available thereby reducing redundancy and optimising the reviewers' inputs. Our team is committed to identifying and shaping critical research findings, and meeting a real need for researchers of child and adolescent psychology and psychiatry. For a number of reasons, JCPP Advances is in a position to achieve these goals and commitments. First, JCPP Advances builds on the values and prestige of its sister publication, the JCPP (www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jcpp), to advance the field by opening new opportunities for diverse researchers and for the dissemination of innovative science. JCPP has for many years led the way in publishing state‐of‐the‐art, forward looking research into child and adolescent psychiatry and psychology. Second, JCPP Advances has been able to recruit an enthusiastic, accomplished and diverse set of joint editors that all are at the forefront of the research and eager to help other researchers publish (https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/26929384/editorialboard.html). Our team of editors who are themselves active researchers and academics, are very supportive of authors and completely understand how important it is for an author to get published in a reputed journal. They will go an extra step giving positive, constructive feedback to the authors to improve their manuscript. The expertise within the joint editor team covers state‐of‐the‐art methodologies and study designs (e.g., Epidemiology, Genetics, Systematic review/meta‐analyses, Cognitive Neuroscience/experimental psychology, neuroimaging and treatment studies), as well as major mental health outcomes (e.g., neurodevelopmental, externalizing and internalizing traits/disorders). Third, JCPP Advances has an extremely eminent advisory board of world class scientists and researchers (https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/26929384/editorialboard.html), like its sister journal the JCPP, that covers all major content areas. Our board members provide expertise and experience to the journal, they act as expert reviewers for manuscript submissions, and they provide input on our focus areas. Fourth, JCPP Advances is committed to stimulate discussion of important clinical and scientific matters via editorials, editorial perspectives and commentaries. We are also making a strong push for narrative and systematic reviews with a clinical (i.e., Clinical reviews) and methodological (i.e., Methodological reviews) focus to provide updates of the evidence‐base in the field and also to provide directions for future research and clinical implementations. Our annual special issue is another major tool to highlight important areas of research in our field. The first special issue of JCPP Advances is scheduled for late 2021 and will focus on the interplay between mental and physical health. Fifth, we have great ambition to work towards getting the journal indexed as soon as possible.
JCPP Advances welcomes submission of papers focussed on all areas of infant, child and adolescent and early adult development as these relate to mental health and disorder and developmental psychopathology, broadly defined. We aim to publish empirical studies and reviews encompassing wide‐ranging methodological traditions, including, but not limited to epidemiology and longitudinal cohorts, experimental psychology, neuroscience, genetics and intervention trials. We encourage clinicians and scientists from any discipline involved in the investigation or management of child and adolescent mental health to send their papers to be considered for publication (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jcppa_journal). Our ambition is that the work published in JCPP Advances will lead to a better understanding of, and better outcomes for, children, adolescents and young adults in our society.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The author has declared no conflict of interest in relation to this editorial.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is the Editor‐in‐Chief of JCPP Advances.