Scientific publishing, ie, sharing our discoveries with broader community, is a cornerstone of biomedical research. It is also a milestone for our projects, promotions, and careers. Without publishing, nobody would hear about our discoveries and those with potential would never translate into improved care. Reading manuscripts enables the “beehive mind” and accelerates progress because we learn from each other. This information sharing is a foundation for reaching the ultimate goal, namely that our discoveries prolong life and boost health for millions.
As is likely the case for many readers, my own personal experience with publishing has been mixed. I have had some papers painfully rejected after multiple revisions that took us months or even years, and I have sometimes received comments that I found puzzling, unhelpfully opaque, or even condescending. I have at times wondered what a successful revision requires, or if such effort is even desired. Oftentimes, trainees ask their mentors to translate the decision e-mail they received from a journal because common sense is insufficient to interpret whether the e-mail constitutes a rejection or an invitation to revise. Contrasting these difficult and disappointing experiences, I also have interacted with editors who provided pragmatic, friendly help and expert reviewers who have saved me from publishing manuscripts with shortcomings. I even have received constructive reviews that greatly improved a manuscript within 3 weeks! Such decision e-mails are inspiring and leave me grateful to editors and peer reviewers.
Although we all love to complain about nit-picky reviewers who make our lives hard, we should remember that we are the peers in “peer review.” It is up to us to make publishing better, faster, more efficient, and last but not least, friendlier. From my own experiences, I know this is possible, and I would like it to become more common. As a community, we can enhance our reviewing interactions, for both ourselves and our trainees. When I was offered the opportunity to lead the editorial board of JACC: Basic to Translational Science, I felt a strong motivation to make publishing better for our community. My experience as an author tells me that this is an unmet need, which I therefore pledge to work on as an editor. I would like to invite you, our readers and authors, to embrace JACC: Basic to Translational Science as an outlet for our community, because we cannot make progress on our own. Maybe as Editor-in-Chief I can set the overall tone, but only together with you, our authors and readers, can we shape this corner of scientific community more to our liking. I count on your valuable submissions, ideas on procedures, and feedback for improvements. Please do reach out to me and my editorial board colleagues personally, either by e-mail or during scientific meetings—we are so eager to hear from you!
I am excited that a team of standout scientists has accepted my invitation to serve our community by joining the new editorial board of JACC: Basic to Translational Science and thus dedicating their time and energy to improving the journal. These editors are prolific, highly successful midcareer scientists. They know good science because they practice it, and they know peer review because they experience it themselves. I am grateful that these colleagues will channel their creativity and energy into reshaping the peer review process for JACC: Basic to Translational Science. Our new executive editors are Cameron MacAlpine and Maarten Hulsmans, and our associate editors are Sabine Steffens, Andrew Lewis, Aneesh Bapat, Gustavo Ramos, Daniela Carnevale, Kory Lavine, Jason Roh, and Nick Frangogiannis.
All of the editors will closely work with our reviewers and authors to make the peer review process less time consuming and painful. One important change is a new 2-phase process in the JACC: Basic to Translational Science submissions workflow. During the first phase, the editors will identify the submissions that will likely be successful during full review, which is the second phase that all eventually accepted manuscripts will undergo. The initial triage by our board will accomplish 2 major goals. First, the first phase will shorten the often-frustrating time spans that authors must wait for what is ultimately bad news—a rejection. JACC: Basic to Translational Science can only publish a minority of the manuscripts it receives. Thus, the new system will provide many of our authors with fast but fair decisions, shortening the time it takes to publish their work. Second, the editorial selection phase will reduce the burden we put on the reviewers, our most precious resource in the peer review process. While deciding to send a manuscript out for full review, the executive and associate editors will receive support from knowledgeable experts; during rapid sessions, our consulting editors will weigh in on the potential merit and technical validity of the submitted work. We will also scrutinize manuscripts for image integrity and plagiarism before sending them out for full peer review. As beginnings can sometimes be difficult, we ask for your understanding and support especially during the transition period over the next months. A year ago, this new workflow was implemented, with great success, for our mother journal JACC by its Editor-in-Chief Harlan Krumholz, and we will fine-tune the process for JACC: Basic to Translational Science in close consultation with the JACC journals family team. In general, we expect to work closely with JACC and the other JACC specialty journals.
If you ever wonder whether your manuscript is within the scope of JACC: Basic to Translational Science, please reach out (jaccbts@acc.org). Our thematic interests are wide and inclusive, with a focus expanding into fundamental cardioimmunology, hematology, neurology, brain–body interactions, modifiable cardiovascular risk factors related to lifestyle, as well as biomedical technological advances.
I would like to thank the prior leadership of JACC: Basic to Translational Science. Over the last decade, Douglas Mann and his editorial team have done a fantastic job creating a new journal, which is now established as one of the best venues for publishing cardiovascular science. Dr Mann has been one of my role models for almost my entire career, and it is a particular honor (and challenge) to take over from him as Editor-in-Chief. Thank you for your tireless service, Doug, and we will do our best to make you proud.
Some of you may know that I enjoy work most when looking at and making sense of new data with fellows and colleagues, chasing the precious “click” when seemingly incongruous facts fall into place and a discovery emerges. Although I intend to keep pursuing that “click,” I will now dedicate some of my time to smoothing your path to publishing such discoveries. Obviously, this only works if you trust our editorial team and submit your findings to JACC: Basic to Translational Science. Please do share your manuscripts with us, along with any ideas that can help us improve peer review for you. Let us not accept the current status quo: let us unleash the scientist beehive brain to make publishing what we wish it was.