When has a journal matured sufficiently so that one can say it has reached adulthood? There is no fixed set of criteria to judge adulthood of scientific journals, but being in existence for just 1 year does not sound very convincing. If not 1 year, what about 2 or 3 years? Of course, the longer the journal has been published, the higher the likelihood the journal has grown up. Thus, entering its fourth year of publication, the European Thyroid Journal (ETJ) might well be considered an established journal. This contrasts with many of the commercial open access journals. Almost every week announcements are delivered in our e-mail inbox that a new open access electronic journal is going to be published, depending according to its business model on heavy page charges (up to USD 1,200 for a paper). Such journals may be tempted to publish anything, even against the recommendation of reviewers, just to pocket the article-processing fee (Scientific Publishing: Grand Openings. The Economist, September 27, 2014). They are always soliciting for papers. If such a journal fails commercially, the company behind it can just let it go and start another one. It would be nice to have statistics on the survival of such commercially driven journals: probably the majority will never see their 4th year of publication. We are proud, as the official journal of the European Thyroid Association to have no submission or page charges.
I feel more criteria have to be fulfilled before we can accept ETJ has reached adulthood. The adjective ‘adult' is used to indicate physically and mentally fully grown, to have reached maturity. A journal depends physically on submission of papers, and in this regard I think we are mature. In 2014 we received 130 papers, of which only 8 were solicited. The monthly number of submissions was already increasing before ETJ got a listing in PubMed in April 2014. This is really a booster for the journal. All of the ETJ articles (including those that appeared before April 2014) can now be found on PubMed (www.pubmed.gov). In 2014 the journal published 4 Editorials, 1 ETA Guideline, 6 Reviews (2 on basic, 1 on translational and 3 on clinical topics in thyroidology), 32 Original Papers, and 3 Letters to the Editor. Whereas all papers are directly available to ETA members, we are pleased to announce that non-ETA members will now also have free access to all papers starting 6 months after release of the paper for publication (www. karger.com/etj). Of course we hope to accommodate even more papers in the future, meaning there will be more issues in each volume of the journal or, in other words, each issue of the journal will become thicker - the journal becoming ‘fatter' is perfectly compatible with adulthood.
What about the other criterion for an adult state, to be mentally fully grown? I translate that characteristic in respect to scientific journals into the quality of the published papers. All papers submitted to ETJ are routinely sent out for peer review, and our reviewers are the custodians of the scientific quality of ETJ. I think they have done a very good job, and we would like to thank them very much for all the time and effort they have devoted to such honourable tasks. As a token of our gratitude, please read the names of our reviewers in the list below. The present state of ETJ in terms of quality looks mature indeed, but it does not mean we will not continue to try to increase the quality of our papers, becoming ‘more mature' if you will. It is perfectly possible for adult persons to see further mental development, becoming ‘wiser' with advancing age. And that we hope will also happen to ETJ.
Wilmar M. Wiersinga
Editor-in-Chief, European Thyroid Journal
Acknowledgement to Reviewers 2014
Patrick Aidan, Neuilly sur Seine
Maria Alevizaki, Athens
Ashraf Aminorroaya, Isfahan
Massimiliano Andrioli, Rome
Bjørn Åsvold, Trondheim
Fereidoun Azizi, Tehran
Giuseppe Barbesino, Boston, Mass.
Luigi Bartalena, Varese
Giancarlo Basili, Pontedera
Graham Beastall, Glasgow
Catherine Beaumier, Vancouver, B.C.
Juan Bernal, Madrid
Bernadette Biondi, Naples
Miklós Bodor, Debrecen
Fausto Bogazzi, Pisa
Steen Joop Bonnema, Odense
Georg Brabant, Lübeck
Anne-Lise Brantsæter, Oslo
Klaudia Brix, Bremen
Maria Grazia Castagna, Siena
Regina Castro, Rochester, Minn.
Francesco Celi, Richmond, Va.
Krishna Chatterjee, Cambridge, Mass.
Herbert Chen, Madison, Wisc.
Vivian Cody, Buffalo, N.Y.
Ides Colin, Mons
Michael Cullen, Dublin
Veerle Darras, Leuven
Terry Davies, New York, N.Y.
Colin Dayan, Cardiff
Mario De Felice, Naples
Wouter De Herder, Rotterdam
Pieter De Lange, Caserta
Henning Dralle, Halle/Saale
Leonidas Duntas, Athens
Sarka Dvorakova, Prague
Erik Endert, Amsterdam
Murat Erdogan, Ankara
Valentin Fadeyev, Moscow
Henrik Fagman, Göteborg
Ulla Feldt-Rasmussen, Copenhagen
Marco Ferdeghini, Verona
Stefano Ferrero, Milan
Laura Fugazzola, Milan
Jackie Gilbert, London
Luca Giovanella, Bellinzona
Christian Godballe, Odense
Hans Graf, Curitiba
James Hennessey, Boston, Mass.
Rudolf Hoermann, Lüdenschied
Charles Intenzo, Philadelphia, Pa.
Alexander Iwen, Lübeck
Pieter Jooste, Cape Town
Yoo Seok Jung, Goyang
George J. Kahaly, Mainz
Jesper Karmisholt, Aalborg
Josef Koehrle, Berlin
Tim Korevaar, Rotterdam
Anne Krejbjerg, Aalborg
Benjamin Lallemant, Nîmes
Peter Laurberg, Aalborg
John Lazarus, Cardiff
Edward Limbert, Lisbon
Marian Ludgate, Cardiff
Andreas Machens, Halle
Ujjal Mallick, Newcastle
Claudio Marcocci, Pisa
Michele Marinò, Pisa
Stefano Mariotti, Monserrato
Sandra McLachlan, Los Angeles, Calif.
Michal Mekel, Haifa
Jorge Mestman, Los Angeles, Calif.
Jens Mittag, Lübeck
Mariacarla Moleti, Messina
E. Molinaro, Pisa
Rodrigo Moreno-Reyes, Brussels
David Mu, Norfolk
Sylvie Nadeau, Quebec, Que.
Birte Nygaard, Herlev
Teresa Norat, London
Manfred Ogris, Vienna
Jacques Orgiazzi, Lyon
Furio Pacini, Siena
Ralf Paschke, Leipzig
Kalliopi Pazaitou-Panayiotou, Thessaloniki
Simon Pearce, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Robin Patrick Peeters, Rotterdam
Gabriella Pellegriti, Catania
Petros Perros, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Luca Persani, Milan
Fabian Pitoia, Buenos Aires
Joachim Pohlenz, Mainz
Kris Poppe, Brussels
Manuel Puig-Domingo, Barcelona
Salman Razvi, Gateshead
Samuel Refetoff, Chicago, Ill.
Cristina Romei, Pisa
Pedro Rosario, Belo Horizonte
Mario Rotondi, Pavia
Daniel Salchow, Berlin
Domenico Salvatore, Naples
Helene Sancho-Garnier, Montpellier
Pilar Santisteban, Madrid
Lutz Schomburg, Berlin
Ulrich Schweizer, Bonn
Paula Soares, Porto
Manuel Sorinho-Simões, Porto
Amanda de Moura Souza, Rio de Janeiro
Carole Spencer, Pasadena, Calif.
Stanislaw Sporny, Lodz
Alex Stagnaro-Green, Rockford, Ill.
Hernan Tala, Santiago
Linda Thienpont, Gent
Agathocles Tsatsoulis, Ioannina
Michael Tuttle, New York, N.Y.
Mario Vaisman, Rio de Janeiro
Paul Van Trotsenburg, Amsterdam
Mark Vanderpump, London
Frederik Verburg, Aachen
Francesco Vermiglio, Messina
Theo Visser, Rotterdam
Göran Wallin, Örebro
Michael Weissel, Vienna
Joachim Weitzel, Dummerstorf
Wilmar Wiersinga, Amsterdam
Dillwyn Williams, Cambridge
Milos Zarkovic, Belgrade
Michael Zimmermann, Zurich
