Endocrinology and Metabolism Is Indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index

Abstract

On behalf of the members of the editorial board, I am very pleased to inform our readers that Endocrinology and Metabolism (EnM, pISSN 2093-596X, eISSN 2093-5978) is now indexed by Clarivate Analytics' Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), which is a new index in the Web of Scienc Core Collection. In an official letter sent on August 1, 2017, Clarivate Analytics informed me that starting in 2017, EnM will be indexed and abstracted in ESCI. As the Editor-in-Chief of EnM, I am very pleased to hear this delightful news. Inclusion in ESCI can provide more discoverability for sources under evaluation as part of the rigorous journal selection process for inclusion in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), or Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). EnM is the official journal of the Korean Endocrine Society (KES). It is published on a quarterly basis with articles in English accepted through the process of peer review. The KES published this journal under the title Journal of the Korean Endocrine Society (J Korean Endocr Soc, pISSN 1015-6380) starting in 1986. Its title was changed to Endocrinology and Metabolism in 2010 (Table 1). Index words from the medical subject headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus are included in each article to facilitate article searches. The journal is also published on the official EnM website (http://www.e-enm.org) and is widely distributed to institutions all over the world. It is now indexed in KoreaMed, the Korean Medical Citation Index (KoMCI), KoreaMed Synapse, Korea Citation Index (KCI), ScienceCentral, PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, EBSCO, Embase, DOI/Crossref, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Google Scholar, and ESCI. Its affiliated societies are the Korean Metabolic Bone Diseases Study Group, the Korean Neuroendocrine Study Group, and the Thyroid Division of the Korean Endocrine Society. It is extraordinary that EnM has shown a steep increase in its self-calculated impact factor, which was calculated to be 1.5 in December 2015 and 1.75 in December 2016. The editorial board of EnM includes world-renowned scientists and clinicians who have published their work in major journals such as Cell and Nature as principal authors. We have editors from 19 nations from five continents throughout the world, and the submission rate from outside Korea is about 50% and is increasing. Manuscripts have been submitted by authors from 22 nations, and EnM is growing as a true international journal. Citations have been mainly made by authors outside Korea, in excellent journals (Fig. 1). The KES has held an annual international conference, the Seoul International Congress of Endocrinology and Metabolism (SICEM), since 2013, and the fifth SICEM was successfully held in April 2017 (http://www.sicem.kr). Hundreds of foreign endocrinologists and many world-renowned scientists have participated in SICEM every year, and they have submitted their excellent work to EnM. Thus, it can be said that SICEM and EnM are working together hand-in-hand for scientific advancement of the field of endocrinology. All manuscripts submitted to the journal undergo a review process by a member of the editorial board and an external peer. EnM is stringently edited and peer-reviewed to ensure the scientific merit and clinical relevance of its diverse content. All published articles are assigned a DOI provided by CrossRef. EnM includes up-to-date studies of the latest advances in the field of endocrinology and metabolism. Abstracts and full texts (in HTML, PDF, and XML format) of all articles published by this journal are freely accessible immediately after publication. We utilize the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) system for authors and editors, which is one of the standard ID systems used worldwide by researchers [1]. EnM has been devoted to promoting higher standards of medical services in the field of endocrine and metabolic diseases and has also acted as a platform for the mutual sharing of knowledge among clinical, basic, and transitional researchers in this field. Our journal covers a broad range of expertise, encompassing molecular biology, cell biology, animal physiology, and clinical research in endocrinology and metabolism. The mission of our journal is to serve as a community for researchers and clinicians in the field of endocrine diseases to share their opinions and results. EnM is also unique in that it focuses on endocrine and metabolic diseases in the Asia-Pacific region. Home to an estimated 3.74 billion people, the Asia-Pacific region houses more than half of the global population, determining to a great extent the level of global economic stability. However, according to the 2015 edition of the United Nations Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), half of the people in this region earn less than 1.51 dollars per day. Therefore, the poor economic status of this region may significantly contribute to the health of the people living in this region. Indeed, the relative dominance of poverty in the Asia-Pacific region affects the abundance of endocrine disruptors, and is thus linked to the increase in endocrine diseases. In addition, the poor economic status in this region is associated with the pandemic of obesity and related disorders. Therefore, deeper and broader attention to endocrine research in people living in the Asia-Pacific region is warranted. The prevalence of metabolic diseases, including diabetes, has increased rapidly in Asian countries, including Korea, China, and India [2]. We assume that most high-impact journals in the field of endocrinology and metabolism are from Western regions, where most developed countries are located. Although balanced evaluations and reviews are published in these journals, it is unlikely for endocrinology research performed in developing or underdeveloped countries in the Asia-Pacific region to be published in these high-impact journals. This is not because these studies present inadequate or unimportant findings, but because English is not the mother tongue of the researchers and also because these researchers often do not have access to expensive infrastructure or experimental equipment due to economic considerations. Therefore, a key Asian journal that can publish endocrine research from developing and underdeveloped Asian countries is needed. From that perspective, we believe that EnM could serve as a platform for the researchers in developing or underdeveloped countries in the Asia-Pacific region who sacrifice their lives for research into endocrine or metabolic diseases and for the treatment of patients with these diseases. Our goal is to help these researchers and clinicians to continue to perform research, to treat patients, and to share their experiences and study results with others in the field of endocrinology and metabolism. We, the editorial board, will strive to accomplish our goal of being included in SCIE. This will help our journal be read and cited more broadly worldwide. We will endeavor to make EnM a world-class journal that plays a significant role in advancing research and care for patients with endocrine and metabolic diseases, and will also do our best to represent the current status and treatment of endocrine and metabolic diseases in the Asia-Pacific region and all over the world. Prof. Hyun Koo Yoon, the president of the KES, and Prof. Dongsun Kim, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the KES, have provided tremendous support to the journal on the path towards the achievement of being indexed in the ESCI. Prof. Moo-Il Kang and Young Kee Shong, two previous Chairmen of the Board of Directors of the KES, consistently inspired us to make this a high-quality journal, and I am deeply thankful to them. I would like to give special thanks to Prof. Eun-Jung Rhee, a deputy editor of EnM, and Hye Yeon Jang, a manuscript editor. We could not have reached this critical milestone without their great devotion. I would also like to express appreciation for the devoted support of Prof. Hun Ki Min, Prof. Hong Kyu Lee, Prof. Kyungjin Kim, Prof. Ki Hyun Baek, Prof. Tae Yong Kim, and Prof. Sun Huh. They are standard-bearers and full supporters of the KES and EnM. Prof. Sun Huh has provided valuable and correct guidance along the path to our goal of inclusion in MEDLINE and SCIE [3]. Lastly, I cordially thank the editorial board members and KES members for their appreciation and support for this journal. I firmly believe that EnM will progress continually to become a world-class journal and express my gratitude to all once more.