Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Acta Physiologica's outstanding performance compared to Nature, New England Journal of Medicine and Science

2015; Wiley; Volume: 213; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/apha.12472

1748-1716

Pontus B. Persson,

Health and Medical Research Impacts

Imagine the following press release: The Acta Physiologica Publishing Group launches the following journals in response to the recent increase in submissions: Acta Physiologica is the leading life science journal with a 2013 Impact Factor of 42. Yes, this is the April issue and no, there is no mix-up with the Nature Publishing Group. I was simply letting my thoughts wander to what would have happened if the impact factor had influenced science already at the time when I was born. This is how the daydream started: Leaning back, trying to start off an editorial, a thought struck me: What was the most intriguing thing that happened the month I was born? Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in a single NBA basketball game? Pope John XXIII excommunicating Fidel Castro? The first Beatles’ album, or Eugene Garfield creating the journal impact factor that would change the face of science 30 years later on? Probably, the latter. So what about Acta Physiologica back then? Take a deep breath. Although the impact factor was defined 50 years ago, there is no information readily available for the impact factors of that period. Citations per published item are available from that time, however. As depicted in Figure 1, Acta Physiologica Scandinavica, as it was called in those days, excelled. Citations per item were routinely twice as high as those of the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature or Science. This value cannot be translated into an impact factor, as the impact factor only considers citations within a very narrow time window. Moreover, not every item is considered citable. Take for instance the following publication in Science: Scientific smorgasbord (Taylor 1958). Of course, such items are only rarely cited and therefore skew the analysis. In fact, I am the first to cite that Science item, 57 years after its publication. Nevertheless, comparing Acta Physiologica Scandinavica with Nature, New England Journal of Medicine and Science is intriguing. Going into more detail, it becomes apparent that Acta Physiologica Scandinavica was absolutely first choice. Take for instance the publication in 1964 by Dahlström and Fuxe, cited more than 4500 times. No article in Nature, Science or New England Journal of Medicine of that year was cited more often. What sticks out is that the authors of the numerous publications in Acta Physiologica Scandinavica that receive more than 1000 citations were Scandinavians: Von Euler, Fuxe, Hökfelt and Ussing, just to mention a few. Back then, our journal was open only to Scandinavians, or those invited. Today, Acta Physiology is global, although submissions from Scandinavia are starkly increasing (Persson 2013a,b, 2014). What would have happened if the current evaluation parameters had already been in place in 1950? Our research world would certainly appear very different. Acta Physiologica would experience an even greater surge of submissions than we see today. Cunning investors may have had purchased the Journal from the Scandinavian Physiological Society and decide to spin off several Acta Physiologica subdiscipline journals with Acta Physiologica as a flagship brand name to accommodate all the top-notch science being submitted. Dream on…. None.