EDITORIAL
Back to journal citation reports
Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia-Brazilian Journal of Pharmacognosy, is back in the group of international journals with Impact Factor, in the lists disclosure last June by Thomson Reuters. Although other Brazilian journals have also gone through the same problem that removed us from the list for two years, none of them has experienced the same negative consequences as RBFAR has suffered. Thus, this is a time to celebrate, not only because of the value we have attained but also because of the positive repercussions that result from our recovering our credibility within the scientific community. Of 99 Brazilian journals indexed in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR, 2012), we are in 32nd place.
Along with this spirit of celebration, some considerations are necessary in thinking about the future of the journal.
First of all, in regard to the Impact Factor (IF) published in JCR 2010, I remind colleagues that we wrote an editorial stating that we did not accept that published value and we did consider only an IF of 0.327, without counting self-citations. We also said at that time that from 0.327 we should grow. Today, our IF without self-citations is 0.509, and in spite of all the difficulties we have had, we are growing, and our self-citations have been reduced from 86% to 23%.
Secondly, we understand that, from now on, we have to consider our IF in its full amount, including self-citations. This is because, as a result of the experience of analyzing our self-citations these last few years, we can say that: i) they are not addressed, and ii) they represent most of the work with Brazilian medicinal plants, done for Brazilian scientists who publish these results in a Brazilian scientific journal. For example, who in the world works with barbatimão or other native plant species? So, we achieved in the JCR 2012 an IF of 0.676, and from this value we must continue to grow.
Finally, the way ahead is well described in our editorial published in issue 2 this year, when we wrote that growth for Brazilian journals will come with professionalization, and this will be our goal going forward. We have new plans, new directions, new working group and new perspectives - but always aiming to give greater visibility to the articles we publish based on our research on natural products, especially in Brazil, as well as providing opportunities for our students and for our post-graduate programs.
To start this new stage, we are pleased to announce in this editorial our partnership with Elsevier. With this, we are beginning a new era in the RBFAR, where our articles will be published by an internationally recognized publisher and will have open access availability at ScienceDirect portal.
By finishing that phase, and we have to thank the authors who believed in our journal by submitting articles even without an IF. The merit of what we have achieved is dedicated to the quality of what was published. However, to achieve and to improve the quality of papers, we must recognize the hard work and dedication of a vibrant community of scientists who have committed many volunteer hours to us over the past years to guide our choices of what to publish; a special thanks to our peer reviewers and editors. A list of those who agreed and have completed a review of manuscripts since June 2009 is published below. They worked tirelessly without pay, and there are no words to express our immense appreciation and gratitude. l have also to thank my students (Claudia Seidl, Luma Wosch, Joélia Carvalho, Juliana Lozich, and Camila Ottoboni), who helped me along these years by checking bibliographies and managing and editing all published articles in RBFAR thus far. Their dedication was exceptional and my gratitude is difficult to express.
Cid Aimbiré M. Santos
Editor-in-chief
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
23 Sept 2013 -
Date of issue
Aug 2013
