Abstract
With this issue of Acta Radiologica, I am happy to announce and present to all of our readers and partners, the new partnership between Acta Radiologica and Royal Society of Medicine Press (RSMP).
Both Acta Radiologica and RSMP have long historic traditions going back in time. The origin of the Royal Society of Medicine goes back to the 18th century when medical societies were beginning to be founded in Europe with the object of bringing together physicians and surgeons in order to promote further scientific, professional and social communication.
The first general medical society of note in England was the Medical Society of London, founded in 1773. On May 22, 1805 a new medical society, The Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, was founded. This society was destined to be the progenitor of the present Royal Society of Medicine.
This society was founded ‘for the purpose of conversation on professional subjects, for the reception of communications and for the formation of a library’.
For the first 100 years or so the Society was located at different places in London. However, the RSM acquired the site on the corner of Wimpole Street and Henrietta Place in 1910, just behind Oxford Street. King George V and Queen Mary opened the final home of the Royal Society of Medicine at 1 Wimpole Street in May 1912.
Over the years the RSM has had several famous Fellows and Presidents. Honorary Fellows have included Darwin, Pasteur, Jenner, and Freud. Several of the past presidents also have diseases named after them: Bright (1837), Addison (1849), Hodgson (1851), Paget (1875), and Pavy (1900).
The RSM has one of the largest medical libraries in Europe now exceeding half a million volumes going back to the 15th century. I spent half a day walking in this library, hours that are highly recommended for anyone interested in medical history.
Acta Radiologica was founded in 1921 by the famous Swedish radiologist Gösta Forssell who was the founding and first chief editor of the journal from 1921 to his death in 1950. The journal was established as a partnership of all Nordic radiological societies, but in fact the Administration was owned privately by Gösta Forssell until the Foundation Acta Radiologica was established in 1939. Since then, the journal has continuously published radiological research – even during World War II when distribution of the journal was rather limited.
The journal was devoted to both diagnostic and therapeutic research. In 1963 the journal was divided into two series, one on diagnosis and the other one on radiation therapy, physics and biology. The result was that Acta Radiologica had a separate issue for radiation physics and biology in addition to the diagnosis issue. In 1987 a division of the journals was performed resulting in the journal Acta Oncologica in addition to Acta Radiologica. This resulted in two separate journals with separate economy and ownership.
During all these years radiology has had an enormous, almost unbelievable expansion with a row of new modalities, which have completely transformed the specialty during the last 30 years. Ultrasound, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and now PET-CT have opened up new horizons leading from not only static imaging to 3D imaging, but also into a new era of functional imaging and tests. Dynamic imaging today plays an extremely important role in the clinical use of radiology. Interventional radiology and minimally-invasive procedures have to a large extent replaced complicated surgical procedures with reduced morbidity, mortality and costs, and often with an increased and better clinical outcome for the patients as a result. Radiology has also taken a major step into translational biomedical research and is an important part in the fast-expanding area of molecular imaging.
This process is extremely demanding from both a scientific and economical point of view and has brought up new challenges to the radiological community. Radiology is already one of the most globally-oriented specialties and this fact will steadily increase in the years to come. It is the responsibility of every scientific journal to meet these demands and to take steps leading in this direction.
Acta Radiologica has undergone a major change during the last few years by increasing the number of issues from six to ten and almost doubling the number of published articles. The Editorial Board has at the same time been re-organized and extended to meet these new demands. The time has now come for further internationalization and expansion. Our long-term strategy has been to expand to new markets, mainly outside the Nordic countries and Central Europe in order to increase the number of readers and subscribers, and most importantly to attract scientists and researchers to submit high-quality manuscripts to the journal. Acta Radiologica has therefore started the process of inviting distinctive representatives from new countries and markets as members of our Editorial Board as full-member associate editors. I am therefore glad in the year to come to be able to present new members of our Editorial Board outside the Nordic countries, which hopefully will lead to further globalization of the journal.
To be able to fulfill this strategy it is important to be in close collaboration with a publisher that we believe will be able to help us to perform and implement this strategy.
The choice of RSMP as our new partner has been the result of a long process starting more than one year ago where six internationally well-known publishers were invited to bid for a new contract with Acta Radiologica. After a detailed and time-consuming process, RSMP was chosen as the publisher that in our eyes could best satisfy our needs in the handling of manuscripts before acceptance and post acceptance journal production together with marketing and outreach to advertisers. In our opinion we have found a partner that will be able to help us to increase our profile and to expand with new authors, readers and subscribers, both nationally and internationally. The financial arrangements were also regarded as very generous and advantageous for the journal.
2011 will be a demanding year but we are convinced that this partnership will increase the globalization of the journal with new editors, authors and readers in Europe and Asia in order to increase the quantity as well as the quality of submitted and accepted manuscripts.