Advancing a new journal: Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis

Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis (RPTH), the open‐access journal of the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH) launched for manuscript submissions in January 2017. Two and one‐half years later, this editorial will share our progress and key accomplishments. The Journal's goal is to disseminate science widely and freely, using novel approaches, to any interested reader. We have expressed our commitment and progress in diversity and inclusion,1 including using the Journal to promote career development.2

Much work was done before our launch. Key steps included selecting a journal title, designing the cover and appearance and color schemes of articles, creating a website and our Scholar One management system, writing instructions to authors focused on ease of submission, and assembling an associate editor team and editorial board with the help of ISTH leaders. Our founding principles were to be relevant to researchers, clinicians, patients, and other stakeholders; to adhere to diversity and inclusion; and to engage early‐career professionals.2

RPTH provides science in several formats, including Original Research Articles, Review Articles, and compelling Case Reports, like most journals. Since the launch, we have developed new manuscript types: Illustrated Review, Tutorial, and Methodological Articles. Tutorials provide concise updates on research methods. Methodological Articles present rigorous validation of new research methods. The two types of illustrated reviews, conference/symposium reviews and thematic reviews, were described in a previous editorial.3 They both contain vivid images or "Capsules" including minimal text to convey information in a novel way.4, 5, 6 This issue includes a State‐of‐the‐Art Illustrated Review article including over 50 Capsules from ISTH 2019 Melbourne Congress speakers7. We are not aware of any other journal presenting science in this manner and hope that our readers find the format stimulating.

Owing to the commitment of the scientific community to submitting manuscripts to RPTH, and the expertise of our editorial team and reviewers, we are consistently publishing strong science. As a result, we were pleased to be accepted for indexing on PubMed and the Emerging Science Citation Index in 2018. These milestones are important to authors and the first step toward having an Impact Factor.8

We assist authors in many ways beyond providing high‐quality peer review and publishing accepted work with open access. We provide expertise on search engine optimization so their work is findable.9 We amplify the work by discussing each published article on social media @RPTHJournal.10 We stretch authors’ creativity through Illustrated Reviews. We print 1 issue of our online‐only journal for dissemination by the ISTH marketing team at scientific conferences through the year; we hope you are collecting these.

What are our future plans? A chief goal is for full indexing, as previously outlined.8 We will continue to innovate methods for reporting and disseminating science for 21st‐century readers. We will develop awards to recognize excellence and present ISTH webinars on scientific publishing topics. We will also refresh the membership of our editorial board soon, to continue to engage new people and early‐career members.

As editor‐in‐chief, I hope that you find great science on our e‐pages, that you will submit your best work to us for publication consideration, and that you will review for us when asked. My outstanding associate editor team and I work for you, so send us your feedback anytime.