Publish or perish: prospects for European Hematological Journals.

T he aphorism Publish or perish usually applies to individual investigators whose scientific careers are closely linked to their production in terms of papers in high quality journals. I will try to show that – mutatis mutandis – it applies equally to journals themselves. There are many ways of calculating journal impact, most of which are based on reference counting. The most popular ranking parameter is undoubtedly the Impact Factor (IF), which was introduced in 1963 through the publication of the 1961 Science Citation Index® (SCI). At the time of this writing, the latest available IF is that of 1994. For those not familiar with the IF, it may be useful to recall the definition provided by the Institute for Scientific Information® (ISI) through the Journal Citation Reports® (JCR). Basically, the IF is the ratio obtained by dividing the citations received in one year by the papers published in the two previous years. Thus the 1994 IF of journal X is calculatated by dividing the number of all the SCI®, SSCI® and A&HCI® source journals’ 1994 citations of the articles journal X published in 1992 and 1993 by the total number of source items it published in 1992 and 1993. According to the JCR®, the IF is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. In addition: “It tends to discount the advantage of large journals over small ones, of frequently issued journals over less frequently issued ones (weeklies vs. quarterlies or annuals); of older journals over newer journals”. I analyzed the 1994 IF of 22 hematological journals (Table 1). Figure 1 shows the relationship between the number of papers published in 1992-93 and the 1994 IF. It is clear that there is a close relationship between these two parameters; about 75% of the variation in the IF (p< 0.00001) is explained by variations in the number of papers published (this percentage would increase by excluding those journals that publish supplements, which are less frequently cited than regular issues). Thus, although the IF tends to discount the advantage of large journals over small ones, the larger the journal, the higher the frequency with which the average article is cited. What can small European journals – such as this one – do to improve their IF and become more competitive? Eugene Garfield, who founded the ISI® and developed the concept of IF, has recently examined this question. He concluded that the IF simply reflects the ability of journals and editors to attract the best papers available. Becoming more attractive is therefore a way of improving impact factor. Accomplishing this, however, is far from easy. Blood is the largest hematological journal and the one with the highest IF in the hematological world. In spite of the fact that authors must pay $500 for publishing a 9-page article, it attracts high quality papers from almost every country in the world. According to Medline®, in 1995 Blood published 1,016 articles (1,135 including letters to the Editor). As shown in Table 2, about one third of these came from Europe. Had all Journal 1994 Impact Factor