The evolution of the "Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia" to meet the challenges of a new era

EDITORIALS

The evolution of the "Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia" to meet the challenges of a new era

Cármino Antonio de Souza

Universidade Estadual de Campinas - UNICAMP, Campinas (SP), Brazil. President, Associação Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia

^{Correspondence}

The "Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia" (RBHH) is the only journal in our specialty south of the equator and one of two hematology and transfusion medicine journals in Latin America. It is the result of the progression from the old "Boletim da Sociedade Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia" and it is in its 12th year of existence. In this period our journal evolved naturally, but this development was less than what the scientific community wants and needs. Data presented by "Scopus" (www.scimagojr.com) show the remarkable evolution of scientific publications in our field within the international setting. We publish at a pace similar to the Chinese and more than India and all other emerging countries. In just ten years the number of indexed publications in Brazil grew about 10-fold, that is at a rate of 15-20% per annum. Moreover, it is important to note that only about 20% of these publications are linked to international trails; i.e., 80% are wholly Brazilian publications.

All this is great, but still small. In spite of being the world's eighth largest economy, Brazilian Hematology and Transfusion Medicine is in 16^th place in the ranking of indexed publications. There is no doubt, as the supplements on our two annual congresses (SBTMO and Hemo-ABHH) have demonstrated for several years now, as have data from European and North American Congresses, in particular the American Society of Hematology (ASH) that qualified national scientific production grows in the wake of the growth of the country because of increasing support from government grant agencies such as Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) etc, and postgraduate programs, among many other reasons. In the last ten years or so, the RBHH has shown a very positive trend both quantitatively and qualitatively. The number of submissions has grown significantly and the publication indicators such as number of papers submitted and accepted, the time between submission and acceptance, the expansion of the editorial board, number of publications annually, the quality of the publication, submission on-line etc. are improving constantly.

The presentation of the journal improved greatly and it is more pleasing for both readers and authors. But all this is little and is not enough. A reassessment of national scientific journals of Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) was a true "cold shower" for the vast majority of periodicals, including the RBHH. The editors reacted and there is a consensus that perhaps the devaluation was exaggerated, but undoubtedly this serves as a warning to make changes and improvements.

As everyone knows, 2010 was the first year of the formal foundation of the ABHH. Many challenges appeared during the merging process with "what should be done with the RBHH" being one of these very important decisions. After discussions within the Board of Directors, Editorial Policy Board, Executive and Scientific Editors, and many conversations and consultations with colleagues who have vast experience in publications in Europe, USA and Latin America, we believe that the RBHH has an important role in the continued education of the Hematology and Transfusion Medicine community, but that it should move towards offering a real and valid publishing option for physicians, health professionals and scientists working in this area. Thus a process to identify problems and find employees who could assist us in this transformation began. A working committee was created of technical advisors together with the editorial staff of the journal including professionals from Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BIREME), a native English-speaking translator, the companies Trasso (which has worked with the marketing and publishing of the RBHH for several years) and GN1 (specialized in indexing in PubMed.

Additionally, it was decided that the journal should have its own Digital Object Identifier (DOI) - a number used to uniquely identify electronic documents - among other things. It was decided that all articles published in 2010 (Volume 32) should be translated to English in order to index the journal in PubMed Central, thereby gaining international visibility with access to the articles. In this process the authors are not being requested to translate their articles, just to check and approve the final text. Even so, the biggest challenges have been saved for 2011. It will not be easy and we are not totally sure of being successful in this venture.

Basically this editorial is the way I found to communicate a request to the Brazilian Hematology and Transfusion Medicine community. Volume 33 (2011) must be the best ever. There will be two versions of all regular issues (six per year): one printed in English and the other, an electronic edition, in both English and Portuguese. All papers should be submitted and published in English, as this, we believe, is central to being accepted by PubMed and ISI.

The structure of the journal is being carefully reviewed and adjusted to comply, when possible, with all the requirements for future indexing in the most important databases of the world. Through the directors of the association and other researchers, contact was made with many colleagues in countries of the northern hemisphere and Latin America asking them to submit papers and participate in the peer review process. Nationally, we invited colleagues, who can decisively contribute to this process, to participate in this transformation. What we know is that we must be more competent and accurate in all phases of the complex editing process. Only then will we have a competitive and respected scientific journal. Indeed, Brazil has a significant number of doctors, health professionals and researchers who can and should publish in the RBHH and I know that the success of this decision depends on the scientific community as I know, as a professor and academic that we always try to publish in the best journals. This is natural and correct. But this time, we may decide to be only observers of our history or, who knows, to change the history. An internationally distributed journal of hematology and transfusion medicine can create scientific opportunities not only for Brazilians, but for many emerging countries around the world. Within the new global scenario, Brazil is becoming a prominent player within the scientific setting; we have much participation and Brazilian Universities are being recognized as some of the world's best, we cannot passively wait.

The ABHH would like to catalyze this inexorable advance in Brazilian Hematology and Transfusion Medicine. The RBHH can be the scientific vehicle of this ongoing transformation that will be carried on by our young researchers guided by our medical colleagues, professors and scientists. Let's invest in these changes because we believe in them. I urge everyone to participate. Prepare your manuscript, submit to the RBHH, participate in this challenge that is ours.

Submitted: 1/24/2011

Accepted: 1/242011

www.rbhh.org or www.scielo.br/rbhh

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  05 May 2011
• Date of issue
  Feb 2011