Operating in an era of impact factor mania

Abstract

When one of us (A.A.) served as chairman of our society (Upsala läkareförening) for a 3-year period some 15 years ago, one of the most challenging tasks was to find a reasonable and fruitful handling strategy for our journal, which at that time was 135 years old. Actually the question, expressed by a task force (Gunnar Ronquist, editor; Bengt Westermark, vice rector; Arne Andersson, chairman) in an editorial on the subject (1), was: should the journal be kept alive or should we let it die? Actually, we asked our colleagues to go on ‘investigating, writing, and publishing’ and preferably in the Upsala Journal of Medical Sciences because ‘we don’t intend to perish’. Tools in that survival strategy included first of all starting electronic publishing. We also tried to stimulate different award winners to write reviews on their research for our journal. One more important move was to introduce special issues on comprehensive research with extramural classes at our faculty. The first one of that sort was that on ‘Diabetes research in Uppsala’ with Claes Hellerström serving as guest editor.