We took over the scientific direction of Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation (NDT) from our predecessors, Eberhard Ritz and Hein Koomans, in July 1999. We have done our best to maintain, if not to improve, the place held by the NDT within the major journals of nephrology. We are pleased to hear that NDT exerts an ongoing attraction, particularly amongst the young readership of the nephrology community. This has been accompanied by a further increase in the number of subscribers. The circulation of NDT has actually grown by approximately 4% per annum despite the current market trend for subscription decline. It is especially encouraging to see growth in institutional subscriptions.
We maintain particular focus on clinical aspects, including clinical and clinically oriented experimental research, and continued medical education. As to the highly instructive, short Editorial Comments that appear in each issue, we would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Eberhard Ritz in motivating numerous outstanding experts to write them for our journal. In addition to the regular monthly issues, eight supplement issues were published in 2000 in various domains of the vast field of clinical nephrology, and another seven such supplement issues were out by the end of 2001.
Thanks to close collaboration with Mandy Sketch and Eva Gooding at Oxford University Press (OUP), NDT has become accessible on the Web since mid-2000. This new mode of access constitutes a major progress, having led to an immediate and easy international availability of all our articles. Currently, 75% of NDT subscribers have activated their online subscriptions. OUP are also carrying out email promotional campaigns to librarians and individuals, as well as co-ordinating specific free online trials, which are an excellent way of raising the profile of NDT.
More recently, we have switched to online electronic submission, using the ScholarOne system (Manuscript Central) which also handles electronic submission for a number of other journals. However, we have maintained paper submission in parallel and this double submission system has not made manuscript handling easier so the potential benefits of the online system have not yet been realized.
In 2001, the average NDT issue comprised 21 original articles, nine articles devoted to editorial features, four clinical reports, and four articles devoted to educational features. The total number of pages published per volume has decreased, as intended, from 3300 pages in the year 1998 to 3000 pages in the year 1999, to 2100 pages in the year 2000, and slightly increased again to 2478 pages in the year 2001. The acceptance rate for original articles between July 2000 and June 2001 was 33% and the rejection rate 67%. The mean time between submission and final acceptance of original articles was nearly 6 months during the same time period. The mean time required for rejection was only 2 months. Note that another period of roughly 5 months must be added for final publication. Thus we have been unable to reduce the still unacceptably long time between the date of submission and that of publication, despite major efforts made by our offices. Therefore, and in spite of repeated minor problems with accessing Manuscript Central, we have decided to switch completely to this electronic submission system in January 2002. This means reviewers are asked beforehand whether they are willing to analyse submitted articles, instead of mailing manuscripts to them without their consent. We are confident that this new procedure will allow us to speed up the publication process considerably.
Obviously, we will have to rely on the continuing good will of our heavily committed Subject Editors and the Editorial Board as previously, together with more than 4000 other dedicated reviewers from all over the world. We continue to think that anonymous peer review of original articles, case reports and letters to the editor is an absolute requirement. It is the mutual evaluation of original articles by clinical and basic research scientists which guarantees the best independent evaluation, in addition to providing useful suggestions for improving manuscripts and the underlying science. This is also the best defence against the increasing amount of unreviewed information of all kinds, which clearly is of major concern to all of us.
It remains our great satisfaction to work together with motivated colleagues, whose kind assistance, alertness and critical minds are of utmost importance for our common goal, namely to increase further the scientific value of original work published in Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation. We also wish to thank industry whose continued support has allowed us to further expand our activities.
We hope that the journal will continue to thrive, despite the steadily increasing information pressure from numerous sources, including the creation of additional traditional and electronic journals in the field of nephrology.