Ever changing tides

It is our sincere honor and pleasure to thank the former editor-in-chief, Karlheinz Voigt, for service in this function for almost 9 years, thereby leading EXPERIMENTAL AND CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY & DIABETES to high reputation and scientific prosperity. Given the challenges of numerous top-level functions such as the presidency of the German Society of Endocrinology, it is all but fair to accept his decision to withdraw and hand over the editorial office to the shared responsibility of Helmut Schatz and Martin Wehling.

During his term, Karlheinz Voigt induced an increase in the impact factor, which has to be considered a great success given the fact that EXPERIMENTAL AND CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY & DIABETES is a German-based scientific journal with apparently international acceptance. The stakes are set high to take over. We feel confident, however, that in continuing those splendid efforts by Karlheinz Voigt and expanding novel developments, this remarkable success will not fade.

New times require new technologies. One of the first innovations intended with regard to the format of the journal is the introduction of an electronic submission procedure. Behind this is the sincere wish of the editors-in-chief to speed up the review process, to ease up the logistic handling of tons of paperwork and in the end to promote good science. There will be a tendency toward internationalization of the editorial board, to be announced, to broaden the base of both paper submissions and scientific advertisements. The details of this novel form of submission will be published in the November issue of the journal.

Despite the more technical aspects of rapid submission procedures such as the ones described above, we also want to further quality in the reviewing process, as the review process will be distributed to an editorial board with specialty assignments. This should mean the reviewing process will be more specific and competitive, hopefully resulting in better scientific papers. However, this requires support from the scientific community. We urge everyone in the fields of endocrinology and diabetology to submit prime positions in their paper production of EXPERIMENTAL AND CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY & DIABETES, as this is the only way to really improve the level of scientific dignity. We rely on pivotal original papers and outstanding, to-date reviews and mini-reviews to really mirror the titillating fields to which the journal is devoted. Both editors-in-chief share the impression that endocrinology and diabetology are rapidly growing scientific areas which impact virtually all clinical disciplines. Molecular genetics, but also sophisticated physiological and clinical methods, have turned endocrinology and diabetology into well-respected, clinically-important and scientifically proliferating fields with great potential for development. Scientific development in these fields is the major devotion of this journal.

In addition to high-standard regular issues, the rapid publication of abstracts and supplementary issues will be of major interest to us to reach these goals. The journal will be open to contributions from virtually all fields which may only merely touch the core interests, as endocrinological features are inherent and pertinent to almost all clinical disciplines. It will expand the endocrinologists' and diabetologists' horizons to learn how hormones are seen not only by those people who work on them day and night, but also by those in related fields where hormones are just being discovered as major disease promoters or health contributors, such as cardiology, angiology, nephrology, and oncology. The field covered also includes metabolic diseases beyond diabetes mellitus, such as lipid disorders and obesity, common diseases with strong hormonal involvement.

EXPERIMENTAL AND CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY & DIABETES will remain the main publication of the German Society of Endocrinology and the German Diabetes Association, and is one of the visible signs of the proximity, complementarity, and possibly most important, synergisms of the related areas. Both of us sincerely wish to continue the longstanding tradition of the journal in dedication to its intense scientific goals as a fast-track, high-standard, both focused and widely open journal of endocrinology and diabetology.