2023 Annual Report of The Journal of Cardiovascular Aging
The Journal of Cardiovascular Aging (JCA) achieved terrific success in disseminating notable advances in cardiovascular sciences in 2023. In addition to publishing original research and review articles, the Journal published several editorials and commentaries and organized a very successful webinar series presented by the leading scientists in the field. The Journal also achieved several milestones, including listing in several databases. It is currently under review for inclusion in PMC and PubMed. The success reflects the dedication and scientific contributions of our esteemed Editorial Board members and editorial staff, as well as the publisher's commitment to supporting scholarly activities. We sincerely appreciate the commitment and the scientific contributions of the editorial board members, authors, and reviewers. Likewise, we deeply appreciate the interest of the readers in the articles published in the JCA.
The summary of the achievements of the Journal in 2023 is as follows:
1. Indexing
The JCA has been included in CNKI, CAS, and Scopus. It has a Cite Score of 2.3. All articles published in the JCA are available through the above databases.
The Journal is currently being evaluated for inclusion in PMC/PubMed
All articles by the NIH-funded investigators are listed in PMC/PubMed and are available for download for free.
2. Publications
In 2023, the JCA published 4 Issues and 43 articles. The cover pages of the issues are shown in Figure 1 and each depicts one selected article from the issue. The categories of the published articles are shown in Figure 2. The published articles in 2023 cover a wide range of research areas and have achieved 31,741 views and 16,659 downloads.
Figure 1. Covers of published issues in 2023
Figure 2. Categories of the articles published in 2023
As of 2023, 65 articles published in the JCA in 2023 were from investigators whose research is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These articles are listed in PubMed and are available for download.
Table 1 shows the list of the top 5 most viewed articles published in 2023.
Table 1. Most viewed articles published in 2023
(Data accessed on December 27, 2023.)
Table 2 lists the top 10 most cited articles published since 2021.
Table 2. Most cited articles published since 2021
The JCA team is committed to timely processing of the articles submitted to the Journal. In 2023, the average time from the submission to online publication of the articles was 35 days.
3. Editorial Board
Every year we recruit new Editorial Board members and rotate others. We are grateful to those Editorial Board members who rotated off this year. In 2023, we recruited eight distinguished physicians, scientists, or physician-scientists to join the Editorial Board of the JCA (Table 3). We are grateful to the new Editorial Board members for their willingness to support the scientific mission of the Journal. The Journal currently has 53 Editorial Board members from 11 countries, including the USA, China, the UK, Italy, Canada, Germany, Australia, Japan, Singapore, France, and Greece (Figure 3).
Table 3. New Editorial Board members
Figure 3. Distribution by countries of Editorial Board members
4. Authors
In 2023, the JCA published articles from a diverse array of authors from various institutions throughout the world. Like the previous two years, there was no charge to the authors for publication of their articles in the JCA in 2023. All published articles are freely available at the JCA website and those funded by the NIH are available, also for free, through PMC/PubMed. We wish to express our sincere appreciation to the authors of the original research articles and are grateful to those who accepted our invitation to write review articles, editorials, or Commentaries on Impactful Discoveries (CIDs). The research published by the authors was funded by several awarding institutions, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the National Research Foundation of Korea, etc.
5. Peer Review
All original research and review articles as well as case reports were subjected to internal and external peer-reviews at least by two reviewers. Editorials, Commentaries, and Perspectives were reviewed by the editors only. We are most grateful to the reviewers who have offered their expertise and time, pro bono, in enhancing the scientific content of the articles. Our sincere gratitude to all.
The peer-review approach at the JCA is designed to eliminate unnecessary experiments during the revisions and offer the opportunity for the authors to present their data to the editors and discuss the necessity or the lack thereof of proposed experiments by the reviewers. The JCA is committed to publishing robust data. A major objective of the peer-review approach in the JCA is to avoid publishing articles that do not contain compelling and robust data.
While we strictly maintain the confidentiality of the reviewers, transparency has been an essential component of our peer-review approach. This year, we started posting the reviewers’ comments as well as the authors’ responses on the journal website next to each article. The approach facilitates judging the merit of the discoveries by the readers.
6. Readership
The readers of JCA are globally distributed, including the USA, China, UK, India, Germany, Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, etc.
7. Features
- Webinars
The JCA Webinar Series has been highly successful and likely among the best, if not the best webinars, in the cardiovascular field worldwide. We successfully held seven webinars in 2023, which were presented by leading cardiovascular scientists who discussed cutting-edge scientific discoveries (Figure 4). Each webinar is named after a prominent physician, scientist, or physician-scientist who has made fundamental contributions to the field. The webinars are available online through the JCA website and some have been viewed by over 20,000 people. Dr. Eric Olson will deliver the first JCA webinar of 2024.
Figure 4. Distinguished speakers of JCA
- Podcasts
In 2023, JCA released seven podcasts. Each podcast briefly discusses an issue that is relevant to the current medical and publishing affairs. The podcasts are available through the JCA website and include podcasts on Peer Review: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; Empowering the Authors; and Proper Citation of the Sources in the Scientific Writings, among others. All Editorial Board members are invited to submit podcasts, Podcasts are reviewed by the editors only.
8. Conference & Collaboration
The 10th Meeting of the North American Section of the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences (IACS) was successfully held from September 7 to 9, 2023, in TAMPA, Florida, USA. The JCA was presented at the meeting as an official journal of the IACS. Likewise, the JCA will actively participate in the 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting of the IACS-North American Chapter, which will be held in Houston, TX on September 19-21, 2024.
9. Awards
We are pleased to announce two new awards, which are named after two prominent webinar speakers who graciously have sponsored the award programs.
The Roberto Bolli, M.D. The award will be given to the author(s) of a short essay (500 to 750 words) on a topic of broad interest to the JCA readership.
The Nick Frangogiannis, M.D. The award will reward the first author of the “Best Paper in 2023”.
Please kindly see the Journal website for details.
Concluding remarks
The JCA is committed to disseminating state-of-the-art scientific discoveries and promoting innovative findings in aging and cardiovascular disease. The Editorial team is deeply grateful to the Editorial Board members for their scientific contributions and unwavering commitment to the Journal. Likewise, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to the authors, whose scientific contributions are the essence of the Journal, and to our reviewers, whose evaluations of the articles have deeply impacted the quality of the articles published in the JCA.
The JCA editors are committed to publishing high-quality original research and review articles and welcome scientific contributions by all of our editorial board members and others. We remain resolute in a timely, fair, and transparent review of all articles submitted to the JCA and publication of robust findings.
Respectfully Submitted by the Editorial Office of JCA.
