Editors' Report for 2006

We are pleased to present our report for the calendar year 2006.

Statistics and modus operandi

During 2006 the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP) continued to thrive. The Journal published 12 Editors' Views, one Editors' Report, four Commentaries, 29 Reviews (including those especially commissioned for themed issues), 136 Original Research Papers (including 17 Short Reports), 22 Letters, and 7 Book Reviews. Proceedings of the Clinical Section of the BPS, the Dutch Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Biopharmacy, and the London Hypertension Society were also published.

The Journal received 405 original submissions (a 6% increase on 2005), of which 280 were Main Papers and 57 were Short Reports. Out of this total of 337, 221 were accepted and 116 rejected.

Submissions came from 44 countries: UK (77), USA (47), the Netherlands (29), Australia (24), France (22), Italy (20), Japan (17), Germany (15), China (13), India (13), Spain (12), Switzerland (10), others (<10 each).

Papers continue to be submitted and handled electronically via the Manuscript Central website, which was revised by Scholar One during 2005. After teething problems with the new system, the processes settled down and are working well. The median times for the various processes were as follows:

1. from submission to first decision – 45 days;

2. from receipt by the referee to return of their report – 14 days;

3. from submission to final decision – 70 days;

4. from submission to final acceptance – 111 days;

5. from receipt at Blackwell Publishing to OnLineEarly publication – 39 days;

6. from receipt at Blackwell Publishing to print publication – 85 days.

The 2005 Impact Factor (citations in 2005 to articles published in 2003 and 2004) was 2.777, compared with 2.546 in 2004, 2.531 in 2003, and 2.274 in 2002.

Editors and editorial boards

Nigel Baber stood down as Reviews Editor and was succeeded by Michael Schachter (London). Adam Cohen (Leiden) replaced Martin Lennard (Sheffield) as European Editor and Derek Waller (Southampton) was appointed as Assistant Editor-in-Chief. We thank Nigel and Martin for their enormous and long-lasting contributions to the Journal.

The following changes to the Editorial Boards were made. Michael Schachter (see above) retired from the Executive Editorial Board at the end of 2006. Ton de Boer (Utrecht) and Emma Baker (London) joined the Executive Editorial Board from 2007. Athol Johnston, Farhad Kamali, and Giampaolo Velo came to the end of their terms on the International Editorial Board and were asked to stay on for extra terms. The Editors thank all Board Members, both Executive Editors and International Editors, for the unstinting contributions that they make to the Journal, on which its success so much depends.

Activities

The Journal's Executive Management Board met three times in 2006. Among the topics discussed were:

• Relationship with the British Journal of Pharmacology: a system of highlighting articles from the two journals was approved and has been implemented.

• Senior editorial changes (see above).

• Developments in China – because China is such a scientific growth area, the Board has discussed the possibility of appointing a Far-Eastern Editor in order to encourage submissions from this part of the world.

• The BJCP Prize 2006. In awarding the BJCP Prize for the best paper published in 2006 by a trainee in clinical pharmacology, the judges had a difficult task. After much deliberation, it was decided to split the prize between Dr JA Clayton, Specialist Registrar in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics in the Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham [1], and Dr A Pathak, a trainee in Clinical Pharmacology in the University Hospital of Toulouse [2]. We congratulate both prize winners on the quality of their work.

To celebrate the 75^th anniversary of the British Pharmacological Society, a Special Issue was published in June 2006. This contained pairs of articles, one describing original research, the other reflecting on possible future developments in the field. The Special Issue began with a forward looking personal view from Professor Sir Colin Dollery of the history and future of clinical pharmacology, highlighted in the Editors' View. Several articles relevant to Chinese pharmacology were included in this issue to mark the concurrent IUPHAR Congress in Beijing (see also below).

In 2006 the Journal had a strong presence at both the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) in Baltimore and the 15^th World Congress of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR) in Beijing. For the latter, a special reprint supplement of the Journal was produced, containing the most highly cited articles of 2003–5.

Following the success of an issue devoted to paediatric clinical pharmacology in 2005, two more thematic issues were published in 2006 (one on therapeutic advances in oncology, edited by Lionel Lewis, and one on clinical immunopharmacology, edited by Adam Cohen). A thematic issue on adverse drug reactions was planned, for publication in early 2007 (see the issue of February 2007), and plans for future thematic issues have been made.

Thanks

We are grateful for the continued support given to the Executive Management Board of the Journal by the Society's Executive Officer, Sarah-Jane Stagg, and its Honorary Treasurer, Arthur Weston. We shall miss Sarah-Jane, who recently left the Society, but we look forward to working with the Society's new Chief Executive Officer, Kate Baillie. Editorial Assistant Colleen Wray and Production Editor Craig Devin, indispensable members of the Blackwell side of the team, ran their respective offices with great efficiency and friendliness; Colleen has recently been replaced by Melissa Holden and Craig by James Martin. Andrea Nicholls of Blackwell Publishing continued to manage the marketing of the Journal with her usual skill, and we are grateful to Annette Whibley of Wizard Communications for organizing our press releases, which have done much to publicize important work published in the Journal. Last but certainly not least, we thank Elizabeth Whelan for sage advice, absolute commitment, and warm friendship.