Editorial on the Development of a New Journal

C. Richard Conti, MD, MACC

Developing a new journal is not an easy task. I can think of four good reasons, and there are probably more. These reasons are as follows:

1. Potential authors may be reluctant to send manuscripts to an unknown “new journal.”

2. Potential authors may be concerned about the lack of an “impact factor.”

3. Potential authors may have concerns about readership of the authors’ work.

4. Potential reviewers may be reluctant to review manuscripts sent to a new journal because most have multiple manuscripts to review sent to them from known journals.

Before the Great Wall International Congress of Cardiology in 2014, Professor Dayi Hu was thinking about a journal written in English from China. He thought this journal should be related to the Great Wall International Congress of Cardiology, a conference in China that he initiated many years ago;thus, he became the founding editor of the journal.At the Great Wall International Congress of Cardiology in 2014, several of us met to discuss the possibility of initiating the development of a new journal.This meeting was with several prominent Chinese,Hu Dayi, and Morgan Lyons, General Manager of Compuscript, a publishing company in Shannon,Ireland. Morgan Lyons’s vision of the journal is to develop it as a successful journal written in English with an international flavor. Dayi Hu also outlined what his ideas were for this journal. Unfortunately,I cannot tell you what he said, because it was all in Chinese; however, I think it was consistent with my own view and that of Morgan Lyons.

At that meeting, I was asked to be the Editor-in-Chief of this new journal, which did not yet have a name. Once the journal had been named (i.e.,Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications), after a meeting in Chicago in 2014 at the time of theAmerican Heart Associationannual meeting, it was planned for the journal to go public in January 2016.

Because it was the of ficial journal of the Great Wall International Congress of Cardiology, it was decided that a print and an online version of the journal would be available in October 2015 at the time of the Great Wall International Congress of Cardiology. This was a special issue on heart failure with Juan Aranda as guest editor. At the Great Wall International Congress of Cardiology in 2015, I met with the Chinese sponsors who fundCardiovascular Innovations and Applications, and they seem happy with the first issue.

The journal contents will be concerned with electrophysiology in February 2016, followed by interventional cardiology, with David Anderson as the guest editor, in the late spring of 2016. The content in the fall of 2016 (at the time of the Great Wall International Congress of Cardiology) will be concerned with risk factor modification, with Ezra Amsterdam as guest editor, followed by an imaging issue in December 2016 with Chris Kramer as the guest editor.

The bottom-line reason for the development of the journal is that the Chinese do not have a cardiovascular journal published in English. Although the journal is the of ficial journal of the Great Wall International Congress of Cardiology, our intent is for the journal to be international and receive manuscripts from all over the world.

The journal will focus on review articles for 2-3 years, published quarterly; however, original research with clinical relevance and case reports with clinical signi ficance and application will be accepted as well.

The objective is to start slowly and to gradually increase the volume, with the goal of publishing monthly, and to increase the readership and impact factor.Of course, the proper editorial board, peer review, and guest editors are a necessary part of this effort.