RBP has a new layout

BPA PRESIDENT'S NOTE

RBP has a new layout

In order to reinforce an outstanding position as a main reference among the Psychiatry and Mental Health journals, 2012 has begun with great changes and achievements. From now on the journal will be edited and published by Elsevier^©, a market leader in professional scientific publications. Based in 24 countries, Elsevier^© publishes around 2,000 journals (including The Lancet), with at least 20 in Psychiatry (including RBP). As soon as we became the Brazilian Psychiatry Association (BPA) Director Board (ABP from Portuguese), we began to negotiate with Elsevier^©, and formalized a signed contract in August 2011. The last 2011 edition came out with substantial changes in both editorial and graphic design.

In the past years, RBP has had a considerable advance in its indexing in MEDLINE and ISI^TM. These were crucial steps for both national and international recognition in the scientific community.

Now that RBP is being published by Elsevier^©, it has expanded its international visibility by attracting more readers and authors, improving its quality indicators. The RBP is the Brazilian publication with the highest impact factor among the journals published by Elsevier^© (IF = 1.593), as well as the largest in Latin America and the second in the Southern Hemisphere regarding Psychiatry and Neurosciences.

Large publishers such as Elsevier^© use the Impact Factor (IF) to present the scientific importance of their journals. Thomson Reuters Corporation^TM is responsible for managing the Institute for Scientific Information^TM (ISI), which publishes on a yearly basis the Journal Citation Reports^© (JCR), a reference work to assess the impact of scientific publications. The IF is measured by the average number of citations of the journal in a given period (the previous biennium).² It is unquestionable that journals with high impact factor published by Elsevier^©, such as The Lancet, have great prestige in the scientific community.

With this change, the electronic submission platform will be performed by the Elsevier Editorial System^© (EES) on a exclusive webpage to RBP. This migration will offer greater speed and efficiency in the publication of accepted papers, which will be online in shorter time once they are approved, thus increasing their visibility and their citation potential.³ Elsevier^© has highly qualified and committed professionals who perform translations into several languages, copyediting, technical proofreading, layout, typesetting review, galley proofs to authors, and digital conversion for indexation.

The new website of RBP (http://www.rbppsychiatry.org.br or http://www.rbppsiquiatria.org.br) contains all the information about the Journal, and can be accessed in both Portuguese and English languages. The complete text of published articles will be available in both HTML and PDF in English full version with abstracts in Portuguese to members of the BPA. However, the whole content of RBP will remain with open access in the SciELO system.

Other actions have also been taken aiming the internationalization of the journal. In the regular editions of the printed version, all the articles will be published in English, the supplements will be in both languages, and the journal's title will change to RBP Psychiatry. On the other hand, the BPA has invested heavily in qualification and scientific updating through the Debates em Psiquiatria Journal (RDP), which is published in Portuguese and clinician-oriented, the PEC, the Psiquiatria Hoje Journal (JPH), the PROPSIQ and, of course, the Brazilian Congress of Psychiatry (CBP) which, through panels, poster sessions and clinical cases, forums and conferences, among other activities, offers its associated members highly significant issues and the most advanced clinical and research knowledge in Psychiatry.⁴ The conference also counts with guests of international prominence, such as neuroscientist Eric Kandel, one of the most important human brain researchers of this century, who has won the Nobel Prize for Medicine with the discovery of the neural mechanisms responsible for memory forma-tion,⁵ and in 2011 was one of the lecturers at the XXIX BPC.

We would like to thank those who have taken part and are still part of the RBP history. It is with the effort and commitment of all that we have achieved today´s results. We are grateful for the Journal's Editors and the BPA Directors, who have always dedicated themselves to RBP, as well as the Editorial Board, reviewers, and authors. Nonetheless, we would also like to thank for the encouragement of our sponsors and for the support from national development agencies, mostly, the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development, CNPq); and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Coordination for Improvement of Higher Qualification Personal, CAPES). Their support has been fundamental, and reflects the Psychiatry that is carried out today by our affiliates, which is a FIRST WORLD PSYCHIATRY.

Antônio Geraldo da Silva

President of the BPA

Brazilian Psychiatry Association

• 1. Bressan RA, Lafer B, Rohde LA, Fleck MP. O desafio dos novos editores da RBP. Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2008;30(2):93-94.
• 2. Garfield E. The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. JAMA. 2006;295:90-3.
• 3. Crippa JA, Bressan RA, Salum GA, Quevedo J, Kieling C, Hoexter MQ, Moriyama T, Chagas MH, Fontenelle L, Polanczyk GV, Fleck MP. Mais um passo para ampliar a internacionalização e a visibilidade da RBP. Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2011;33(4):317-318.
• 4. Da Silva AG. Mensagem do Presidente para o Suplemento de Pôsteres do Congresso Brasileiro de Psiquiatria. Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2011;33(Supl Esp):52-53.
• 5. Kandel ER. In search of memory: the emergence of a new science of mind. 2006. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, NY, USA. 352p.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  18 June 2012
• Date of issue
  Mar 2012