In June, as usual, Thomson Reuters-ISI Web of Knowledge published the impact factors for all the medical journals included in its listing and they attributed to Revista Portuguesa de Pneumologia (RPP) an impact factor (IF) of 1.56.1 This is the seventh consecutive year that RPP has been awarded an IF, the sixth consecutive year that it has increased and the third consecutive year with a score above 1 (Fig. 1).2–5 The present IF is the result of 131 citations in 2016, to be exact, 70 citations from articles published in 2014 and 61 from articles published in 2015, based on a total of 84 articles published in RPP in those 2 years.1 As in recent years, PJP has kept up a progressive increase in the number of citations, not only related to the two years considered in IF, but also considering all previous editions, considering that a total of 426 citations has been reported.1 Again, like last year, these citations came from a significant variety of medical journals which included some of the journals with higher IF (Fig. 2).1 More important is the fact that this has resulted in the 5-year IF to be now for the first time above 1, more precisely 1.392.1 This is undoubtedly because this is the score used by many academic institutions to evaluate medical journals and its papers. In the national scenario, RPP not only, for the fourth consecutive year the national medical journal with the highest IF, but also top of all the Portuguese scientific journals with IF.1
As I have stated in previous years a special acknowledgement has to be given to the Board of the Pulmonology Portuguese Society (SPP), to the associate editors and to all the Elsevier staff for all the encouraging and loyal support. Our deep appreciation is also due to all the reviewers for their time and effort, which has led to the improved scientific quality of the published data, and to the authors trusting RPP as a suitable medium for promulgating their scientific work.
All these results are a consequence of an editorial program established some years ago and strictly adhered to which puts in the position now propose new and ambitious objectives for the next few years.6,7 Our present aims are to reach the third quarter and in a few years to achieve an IF around 2. As I mentioned, this is really a new era, one that needs a journal with a Portuguese background but which is open to the entire world, in order to attract more readers, authors, reviewers and of course citations and have an increasing impact. Rather than revolution, we have chosen a succession of sustained reforms, such as the association to Elsevier, English as the journal official language and all the editorial adjustments formulated throughout these years.
We may consider the next step, the changing of the journal title, as the final stage of the previous program and the first initial stage of the new project, because it is really a continuous process which now has stronger foundations which makes greater ambitions feasible. From next January, the new name of RPP will be PULMONOLOGY and we need all the wholehearted enthusiasm and commitment from the Portuguese pulmonologists for this exciting but challenging project. In the last two years we have looked at all the changes and consequences of this step and I think that we managed to reach a consensus, as this procedure was approved by a large majority of SPP associates when presented to the General Assembly where this issue was discussed and decided. The consensus is to produce an international journal with a higher impact that achieves a greater visibility and impact for the national respiratory research and achievements and therefore for the national respiratory physicians and researchers. Are we ready to move into the eye of the storm? I do believe so, and that the next few years will demonstrate that we, for certain, are ready and looking forward.
