Let us consider that this generation of JAFES is in adolescence: we must help it maintain a balance of hormones that, over time, affect the Journal’s many processes, including mood, growth, development, metabolism and reproduction. The Journal needs to function well through its organs and systems: foremost, our readers including health care professionals and their patients; equally, our authors and their institutions; and finally, our member Societies.
Our readers are served well by the open-access format of the Journal, bringing closer to them the Southeast Asia-specific research data and findings on endocrine-related conditions.
Our authors are empowered by the supportive editorial policies and processes that aim for clear, relevant and timely publications.
Our member Societies are enhanced in the pursuit of their missions.
Thirteen years young and growing, what then concerns the JAFES of this generation?
In the recent years since 2011, readers have benefitted by more than 2.5 million views and downloads from our JAFES website.
With indexing on several platforms—initially on Scopus in 2017, Web of Science in 2019, PubMed Central in 2020 for articles since 2017, and most recently on PubMed/MEDLINE since December 2022—our authors and other researchers now have more than 240 articles contributed through JAFES to the global body of knowledge. And the article submissions keep coming in in greater numbers.
Through these 13 years, all seven member Societies of AFES have demonstrated that supporting research publication is one mission that they share, and one service that they share with their individual members. Annual funds have been consistently contributed by the Societies. More than 433 JAFES articles have been published whose author or authors are Society members.
Now, then, is time for JAFES to depend on other funds—in effect other hormones—for further growth and development. It is our editorial team’s considered opinion that a small dose, a modest amount, of article processing charge, is reasonably indicated. The amount must remain tolerable by Southeast Asian authors and their research fund providers.
This way over a course of another six years, give or take, JAFES should be able to depend less on funds contributed by the member Societies and depend more on contributions by the authors themselves with their research funders.
We look to enhanced hormonal interactions to preserve balance through maturity. We look to greater impact and relevance, stronger impetus for policy change and closer collaboration within the region.
Let me take this opportunity to invite colleagues across the region to join in the celebration of the gift that keeps giving. Mabuhay!
Elizabeth Paz-Pacheco
Editor-in-Chief
Biography
