During the last decade, the Portuguese Pulmonology Journal, now designated as PULMONOLOGY has gone through a significant editorial adjustment with two main objectives. There is the need to meet the prerequisite standard of editorial proceedings demanded by the medical journals with the highest impact factor, which would certainly facilitate publication of scientific papers in these journals by Portuguese respiratory research groups. Then the availability of a scientific journal, which has an increasing impact factor, would provide a significant improvement in the visibility and impact of the national respiratory research.1-8

The present impact factor of 1.73 and the potential to reach an impact factor of 2 should be seen as a great opportunity of achieving these two main objectives. Of course, in order to increase the number and impact of Portuguese respiratory research in the main respiratory scientific journals many other circumstances will have to change. The need to establish strong ties with the basic research labs is as yet unmet; that would facilitate sustained research programs with subsequent publications and a substantial impact at least in the main hot topics of respiratory diseases. This is an essential element; otherwise we will just keep on having anecdotal publications, usually in the clinical subset, without a sustainable presence and therefore recognition of the expertise of any of the Portuguese respiratory research groups. As far as PULMONOLOGY is concerned, despite a sustained increase in the impact factor, we have still many worrying aspects, such as an excessive proximity between editors and authors, the difficulty of recruiting new reviewers, a tendency to regional bias and lack of clarity on the best way to proceed. How we can move on in our trail to give a broader appeal to the journal, to give the notion ‘from Portugal but open to world’?

So we have decided that it is time to try an international editorial board that is completely independent of the journal and of the Sociedade Portuguesa de Pneumologia (SPP). An Editor-in-Chief from abroad, with high international recognition, can increase the independence and international impact of the journal. I reaffirm our main objectives set out in the first paragraph of this editorial. It was difficult to find an international personality that could fulfil all these goals. It is our privilege to have the opportunity of the collaboration of Prof. Nicolino Ambrosino who will have the autonomy to appoint associate editors from the international respiratory community and together with some Portuguese editors, such as the present associate editors, will constitute the next editorial board. On the 15th of February, Prof. Nicolino Ambrosino will take full charge as new Chief-editor of PULMONOLOGY. Prof. Nicolino Ambrosino is the present Research Consultant at Istituti Clinici Maugeri, Pavia, Italy and is and/or has been appointed professor at the Italian Universities of Pisa, Pavia, Firenze, Trieste, Milano, Siena and Genova. His research activity has been devoted to COPD, Respiratory Critical Care, Pulmonary Rehabilitation and Home Respiratory Care. He has contributed to the development of the use of Non-invasive Mechanical Ventilation techniques in acute and chronic respiratory failure with several clinical trials and original experimental studies. He is the author of more than 300 international articles, with more than 9500 Citations and an H Index 49. He has been Programme Director of European Respiratory Society (ERS) years 2013–2017, Congress Programme Advisor and member of ERS Science Events Working Group. He was Associate Editor of the European Respiratory Journal, Chief Editor of the European Respiratory Topics, Co-Editor of Breath and member of Advisory Boards of several International Journals. We are very honoured and grateful to Prof. Nicolino Ambrosino for accepting our offer of this post and as the scientific society associated to PULMONOLOGY we will give him all possible cooperation

I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank all the previous members of the editorial council, namely the thematic editors, for all their hard work and strong commitment to the journal and the editorial policy. Without their help this recent evolution would have been impossible. I hope that they, like the rest of the members of SPP, will continue to support this demanding but necessary new step on the road to the impact and recognition of the Pulmonology of the Portuguese.