https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7492-4984
Dimitris Tousoulis MD, PhD, of the Hippokration Hospital, in Athens, Greece is current Editor-in-Chief of the Hellenic Journal of Cardiology which has been publishing high-quality articles since 1957. The bi-monthly publication serves as the official voice of the Hellenic Society of Cardiology. It has an acceptance rate of ∼20% and features a mixture of reviews, original articles, editorials, and correspondence relating to all clinical and basic science aspects of cardiology. The international edition was first published in 2002.
Former Editors-in-Chief Christodoulos Stefanadis MD, PhD, and Panos Vardas MD, PhD, both took the Journal forward during their tenure, and their efforts helped secure MEDLINE registration for the international edition. The Journal was subsequently indexed by PubMed and ScienceDirect, among others, and was also included in Journal Citation Reports™ (JCR) statistics.
When Tousoulis assumed the Editor-in-Chief role in 2015, he engaged the publisher Elsevier BV, aiming for a wholesale rejuvenation of the Journal. He says: ‘This included the review process, the publication format and most importantly, the content and quality of published articles.’ (Figure 1) Since then, he says, the dynamic international Journal continues to attract an ever-growing number of articles from Europe, the USA, Canada, Asia, and all over the world in the form of original research articles and reviews, alongside a significant number of editorials and opinion papers from established and recognized scientists in cardiovascular medicine.
Key statistics of the Hellenic Journal of Cardiology. (A) Acceptance rate of submitted articles for 2020. (B) Number of full text articles published by the Hellenic Journal of Cardiology and downloaded from Science Direct in the last five full calendar years according to region.
Since 2016, the Journal has achieved considerable growth in readership, with almost 43 000 downloads from the USA, 9000 from the UK, and even 6000 from Japan. Articles from the Journal have also gained considerable attention on social media platforms according to PlumX Metrics. More significantly, Tousoulis says, this has led to a dramatic rise in the Impact Factor (IF) of over 400%, from ∼1.0 in 2015, to 4.047 in 2019, based on Clarivate Analytics. According to Cite Score Tracker, statistics for 2020 look potentially higher. The Hellenic Journal of Cardiology has also risen from 107th position in 2015 to 39th position in 2019 amongst cardiovascular journals.
As the mouthpiece of the Hellenic Society of Cardiology, the Journal represents and reflects the activity of one of the most active national societies in Europe, with 18 working groups, and two national and four regional annual congresses serving >3300 members from Greece and around the world. Tousoulis says: ‘The Journal has emerged as the spearhead of scientific education for our national society and acts as a repository of scientific results from Greece, facilitating scientific communication between Greek cardiologists and the Hellenic scientific community of the diaspora.’
Future efforts will focus on improving the quality of the Journal and extending its international reach.
Conflict of interest: none declared.
