The challenge of new RBP editors

EDITORIAL

The challenge of new RBP editors

We take charge of the editorial board of Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria (RBP) with great satisfaction and sense of responsibility.

Over the last 10 years, RBP went through major changes and we observed a considerable improvement in the journal’s quality. Indexing in MEDLINE and ISI was an essential step to make our journal recognized by the national and international scientific community. This enhanced quality of articles even more, making RBP the most important psychiatric journal in Brazil.

We are certain that such achievements are a result of continuous improvement in the quality of national scientific production,¹ associated with outstanding editorial work.² Over the past 10 years, Euripedes Miguel and Jair Mari working with total editorial freedom and open dialogue with the Associação Brasileira de Psiquiatria (ABP - Brazilian Association of Psychiatry) have done an excellent job. RBP is currently acknowledged as a successful case of scientific journal by entities such as the Associação Brasileira de Editores Científicos (ABEC - Brazilian Association of Scientific Editors) and the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO).

As editors, our goal is to maintain RBP’s growth rate and work hard to further improve the journal’s excellence. The new group of editors is composed by two members of the previous editorial group, Luis Augusto Rohde, who will be temporarily present to ensure continuity in the management process, and Rodrigo Bressan, who is now editor-in-chief (after five years as associate editor). Two new editors joined the team, Beny Lafer and Marcelo Fleck, both being a reference in the current scenario of Brazilian psychiatry. Associate editors Marcos Mercadante and Hermano Tavares, and the junior editors Christian Kieling, Juliana Belo Diniz and Marcelo Q. Hoexter remain in the board, ensuring a solid and comprehensive editorial work in various areas of interest. We are confident that such combination of professionals will ensure continuity of the previous editorial policy, bringing new perspective and energy to face new challenges.

One of the actions we intend to implement is further improving RBP’s efficiency. We intend to use online management of articles to accelerate the process of reviewing articles, so that authors can have their articles evaluated and published faster.³ With the aim of attracting high-impact research studies, we will improve the fast-track system for articles of high scientific relevance.

As an ABP’s journal, RBP has a double mission of disseminating high level scientific production and providing updated information for continuous education. We will invest time and energy to further improve reviews and updates by recruiting national and international experts to write about relevant themes that will have a direct impact on Brazilian psychiatric practice. In addition, we intend to renew the letter section, encouraging readers to comment on articles and clinicians to send interesting case reports for publication. That section is very important for young clinicians and researchers, given its brief format.

This year we will have the value of our impact factor. Preliminary calculations suggest that RBP should reach a value close to 1.⁴ This index makes RBP one of the three main medical journals in Brazil and inaugurates a new era.

We are aware of the responsibility we have assumed and we feel privileged for being part of such productive and pulsating contemporary Brazilian psychiatry. We know that replacing the excellent editors that preceded us will not be an easy task, but we are honored to face this challenge. As always, we count on the support of ABP board to maintain a responsible, agile and efficient editorial board, which can reflect Brazilian psychiatric research and clinical practice independently. Above all, we hope to keep the collaboration with all clinicians and researchers to face the challenge of transition and to constantly elevate our journal’s standard.

Rodrigo Affonseca Bressan

Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), São Paulo (SP), Brazil

Beny Lafer

Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo (SP), Brazil

Luis Augusto Rohde, Marcelo Pio de Almeida Fleck

Departament of Psychiatry, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRS), Porto Alegre (RS), Brazil

References

• 1. Bressan RA, Gerolin J, Mari JJ. The modest but growing Brazilian presence in psychiatric, psychobiological and mental health research: assessment of the 1998-2002 period. Braz J Med Biol Res. 2005;38(5):649-59.
• 2. Miguel EC, Mari JJ. A hora e vez de uma nova liderança na Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria. Rev Bras Psiquiatr 2008;30(1):1-2.
• 3. Bressan RA, Miguel EC, Mari JJ, Rohde LA, Mercadante MT, Tavares H. RBP inicia o gerenciamento on-line de artigos. Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2007;29(3):202.
• 4. Kieling C, Gonçalves RR. Assessing the quality of a scientific journal: the case of Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria. Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2007;29(2):177-81.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  23 June 2008
• Date of issue
  June 2008