During 2010 (from 1 January up to October 31 2010) BJCP published:
9 Editors' views, 1 Editors' report, 1 Editors' pick, 13 Reviews, 105 Main papers, 15 Short reports, 20 Letters, 2 Systematic reviews, 2 Commentaries, 1 Personal view, 1 Obituary + 2 related James Black papers, 3 Book reviews, 3 New drug mechanisms, 8 Methods in Clinical Pharmacology, 1 Case report and 2 Proceedings/Abstracts.
Most of these numbers were largely similar to those of the previous year, but there were gratifying increases in the number of invited reviews and of papers on methodology, in line with our policy to stimulate these categories.
During the same time period we received 531 original submissions (22% up compared with 2009), of which 326 (+17%) were main papers and 36 (+5%) were short reports. Of this total 113 (+9%) have been accepted and 271 (+41%) rejected; the rest are pending a decision or awaiting revision. It is obvious that the Journal has a big increase in submissions, but apparently this does not mean that the extra papers are all of the expected quality. This is evidenced by our acceptance rate of 37% in 2009 having gone slightly down to 35%. This figure is an underestimate of our acceptance rate as many papers are still awaiting a decision and the end of year acceptance rate is usually around 50%.
Original submissions from 1 November 2009 to 31 October 2010 came from 54 countries: UK (103, 16.5%), USA (51, 8.1%), Netherlands (45, 7.2%), India (41, 6.5%), France (40, 6.4%), China (38, 6.1%), Italy (30, 4.8%), Australia (29, 4.6%), Japan (26, 4.2%), Germany (23, 3.7%), Denmark (18, 2.9%), Switzerland (17, 2.7%), Korea (16, 2.6%), Spain (13, 2.1%), Iran (11, 1.8%), Sweden (11, 1.8%), Canada (10, 1.6%) and 37 other countries (<10 submissions each). Compared with last year we saw a drop in the number of papers submitted from the UK, Germany and the USA of almost 40% but increases from India, Iran and Canada, each of which made it to the list of countries with more than 10 papers submitted.
Papers were submitted and handled electronically via the ScholarOne website.
Median times (2009 figures in brackets) were as follows:
from submission to first decision 42 (39) days (range 0–169);
from receipt by the referee to return of their report 13 (14) days (range 0–127);
from submission to acceptance 98 (97) days (range 0–271);
from receipt at Wiley-Blackwell to Accepted Article publication 7 days (this replaced Early View publication in March 2009)
from receipt at Wiley-Blackwell to print publication 75 (103) days
This shows satisfactory improvement, especially in the time a paper spends at the publishers. Clearly, considerable time has been gained in the technical editing and our publishers are to be commended. The important time from submission to first decision, clearly what our authors find most important, went up slightly despite the impressive median response time from referees (less than 2 weeks to return of their report) but with a long tail up to 127 days. This figure will be closely monitored and action taken if necessary.
The Impact Factor is 3.246 up another 4% but not as much as last year when the increase over 2008 was 17%. BJCP is now 66th out of 237 journals in Pharmacology and Pharmacy. Out of the 7378 journals in the Impact Factor list we are at number 1077. So, the journal ranks in the top 15% but our US sister journal CPT is well ahead with an impact factor of 6.993.
Changes in the editorial boards
We welcome Noel Cranswick, Geoff Isbister, Danny Liew, Jenny Martin, Terry O'Brien and Arduino Mangoni to the Reviews Board. Oliver von Richter, Derek Stewart, John Warren and Sarah Hilmer joined as executive editors and we were very pleased that Martin Lennard agreed to rejoin the Executive Editorial Board.
Hans-Georg Eichler and Mike Rieder joined the International Editorial Board.
Leon Aarons, Bernard Cheung and Alyn Morice reached the end of their term and we are immensely grateful for all the hard work they have done for the Journal.
Logistical matters
The monthly teleconferences of senior editors have greatly increased communication about day to day issues including occasional appeals over editorial decisions and regular overview of copy and editorial process. Input to these meeting from Wiley-Blackwell (Katie Howard, Managing Editor and Elizabeth Whelan, Publisher) and from the society (Hazel O'Mullen, BPS Publications Manager) has greatly facilitated the process of producing the journal. In the last year meetings with the sister journal BJP have taken place to determine a joint strategy.
In the editorial staff Amanda Hunter has replaced Martin Childs as the Production Editor, and Victoria Renigan has recently been appointed to replace Leila Mills as Editorial Assistant. We are grateful to Alice Ellingham who looked after the Journal in the interim. The editors thank Katie, Amanda and Martin for their unwavering support, welcome the new staff members and acknowledge the enthusiastic support of Michael Willis (Editorial Services Manager) and Phil Wright (Marketing). As always the publishing team was expertly led by Elizabeth Whelan.