Nuclear Medicine & Biology (NMB) and the Society for Radiopharmaceutical Sciences (SRS) have a long history of joint activities to disseminate information to advance the radiopharmaceutical sciences. Most importantly, NMB has been the official scientific journal of the SRS since the SRS was established. The aims and scope of NMB are very close to those of the SRS, making these two independent entities natural partners. A membership in SRS offers a complimentary subscription to the e-version of NMB, and for only $30 USD extra, a subscription to the printed version may be added. In addition, NMB publishes abstracts of SRS-affiliated symposia like the Terachem symposia. Because of this lasting collaboration, we strengthen the radiopharmaceutical sciences field, benefitting all of us. The editorial board of NMB and the SRS board of directors agree that this should be continued in the future. One example of a new service to the SRS membership is a NMB e-table of content available to SRS members.
As editors of NMB, we appreciate all submissions from SRS scientists and we strongly encourage SRS scientists to submit their work to NMB. Moreover, we preferably welcome SRS scientists to review manuscripts, since they demonstrate expertise in the field. By these means, we will continue the high quality of science published in NMB.
As all scientists now experience, the impact factor of journals is becoming increasingly important. NMB has a steady impact factor of around 2.5, which is competitive in our field, even compared to nuclear medicine journals. However, since our field is relatively small, NMB cannot compete with journals outside the field of radiopharmaceutical sciences where impact factors above 5 are common. Jeanne Link has written an interesting editorial about this topic, Nucl. Med & Biol 2015;42(5):426-427.
The editorial board of NMB is continuously working on increasing the impact factor of NMB. Most importantly, we seek high quality submissions that after publication would attract large number of citations. Moreover, NMB has no limit the numbers of papers cited in a particular manuscript, so only referring to review publications could be avoided. In fact, referring to the primary publications instead of reviews is often more appropriate. It is up to all scientists in our field to take their responsibility to publish in NMB in order to promote radiopharmaceutical sciences and to create a sustainable situation.
We look forward to receiving your manuscripts!
Bill Eckelman & Bert Windhorst