It is this time again to celebrate another milestone which International Psychogeriatrics has reached. In 2014 the theme is silver, since it is a quarter of a century since the International Psychogeriatric Association (IPA), founded in 1982, and International Psychogeriatrics joined forces in the quest to improve the mental health of older people around the globe. Our journal has matured since coming to life in 1989, growing up under the watchful eyes of a series of dedicated editors to come of age in 2009 (Ames, Reference Ames2009), and now experiencing maturity, enjoying the 25th wedding anniversary with the IPA. International Psychogeriatrics is proud to be the scientific journal of IPA and strives to publish high quality scientific work in the field of psychogeriatrics with the aim to reflect the global vision and mission of IPA. International Psychogeriatrics will commemorate this happy occasion with exciting content in the 12 issues of 2014 as well as a silver ribbon on the cover.
During its 25-year-long journey, International Psychogeriatrics has enjoyed a steady rise in submissions, which has resulted in increased page numbers over the years. It started with two annual issues in 1989, rising via four to six issues by 2009, eight issues in 2010, ten issues in 2011, finally to reach 12 issues, each usually with 170 pages of papers, for the first time in 2012. This increase of output to 12 issues per annum is probably the main reason why the 2012 impact factor (IF; 2.188) dropped by 2% compared with the 2011 IF. The 2012 IF was calculated by dividing the number of citations made in 2012 to content published in 2010 and 2011 by the overall number of papers published in International Psychogeriatrics in those two years. There were 711 citations made in 2012, compared with 607 in 2011. This is a substantial 17% increase on citation counts from 2011 to 2012, while there was a 20% increase in papers published for the 2012 IF denominator compared with that of 2011 IF. The effect of this rapidly rising output will still be present up to and including the 2014 IF to be released in 2015, but the speed of the expansion minimizes the time period during which the IF will be negatively affected by the journal's growth. In this context it is also important to mention that for a journal of this size one can expect to see a 15% random fluctuation in IF year on year based solely on the statistical effects that occur due to the nature of the IF calculation itself.
What else has changed in recent years other than the increase in output? The journal's online submission website (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ipg) has been live since 2010 and all submissions are done via the website with very few problems encountered overall, and continuous improvements are made to the system as we go along. Matching the increase in output, the editorial team has also grown in comparison to the early days. Currently five deputy editors and the immediate past editor, David Ames, support the editor-in-chief. The current deputy editors are John T. O'Brien (UK), Guk-Hee Suh (Korea), Craig Ritchie (UK), Kostas Lyketsos (USA), and Christina Bryant (Australia). They all oversee the complete editorial process for the manuscripts which Joan Mould, our editorial assistant, assigns to them. I would like to thank this enthusiastic team, as well as two previous members (Nancy Pachana and Michael Philpot), who recently stepped down from their respective roles as deputy editor and book review editor, since without their hard work it would be impossible to keep the short turn around time from submission to publication which is among the briefest of journals in this area. This team is supported by 36 associate editors from 15 countries covering various professions, including old age psychiatrists, other psychiatrists, geriatricians, neurologists, physicians, epidemiologists, psychologists, neuropsychologists, occupational therapists, and nurses. Additionally, International Psychogeriatrics benefits from the four statistical experts when specific input is needed when reviewing the methodology of submitted manuscripts, and from the language advisory panel to support authors of non-English speaking background. And then there are of course the numerous reviewers, at least two of whom review each submitted paper; without their generous help the peer-review process would not be possible. And finally, the board of directors of IPA as well as the publisher, Cambridge University Press, engage with International Psychogeriatrics in a continuous dialogue to help progress the journal further.
International Psychogeriatrics, despite the silver lining, embraces modern times and so like many other journals we now focus on electronic publication. Also, since 2010, International Psychogeriatrics offers the possibility for authors to publish their manuscript under the open access scheme. Increasing numbers of funding bodies indicate a preference for their fundees to publish in journals offering full open access publication and so we expect this option to become increasingly popular. And finally, IPA and the publisher currently explore how best to link International Psychogeriatrics to social media options with for example introducing options like social sharing bars for readers to share content with their colleagues.
So what do we have in store for the 2014 anniversary issues? To celebrate the occasion, the editorial team approached many opinion leaders in the field of psychogeriatrics and invited them to contribute to the 2014 silver issues with a manuscript reflecting their passion for the field. We were overwhelmed by the positive response we received and therefore will feature in each issue two guest editorials in order to be able to include all the excellent opinion pieces which we were offered. We also introduce in 2014 a paper of the month per issue, the first of which is a systematic review on the effect of exercise on cognitive outcomes in Alzheimer's disease by Farina et al. (Reference Farina, Rusted and Tabet2013), which is featured in this issue. The paper of the month is selected by the editorial team to point out a review or an original contribution which we think should be of great interest to most readers. Each paper of the month will be accompanied by a short commentary (Lautenschlager, Reference Lautenschlager2013) provided by an editor, reviewer, or expert in the field.
And now we invite you the readers, authors, and reviewers to celebrate with us this silver anniversary and encourage you to continue to support International Psychogeriatrics so that the younger generations among us can look forward to celebrating pearl, golden, diamond, and platinum anniversaries to come!
Conflict of interest
None.
