January 2021 marks the 26th year of continuous publications for Neurosciences journal. The major achievement for the Neurosciences journal last year was our ability to sustain the full editorial activity during the global coronavirus disease (COVID19) pandemic. A worldwide curfew was put into place with movement restrictions, but despite these global circumstances, we were able to serve our authors and readers with sustained submissions. Like many scholarly publishing industries, Neurosciences journal has responded efficiently to COVID19 pandemic, as many workplaces have shifted to the online working environment and many onsite activities were canceled, prioritizing the health and safety of the individuals.
Neurosciences journal have implemented many initiatives. We have encouraged our affiliated societies to submit consensus Statements on COVID19 that would help and support the health care providers with the updated recommendations and guidelines. Keeping the patients’ safety and limit the spread of COVID-19 in the vulnerable populations were, and still are, the main principal concerns. To publish COVID19 reports at the correct time; we have expedited any submission focused on COVID19, maintaining the standard quality of our journal. Further pressure was put on a peer-review process to complete the publication process faster than the usual standard time frame.
During the lockdown, many researchers and authors spend their curfew times at home drafting and preparing their manuscripts for the publications. Our data have shown the highest submissions occurred during the lockdown months compared with other months of 2019. On a positive note, COVID19 pandemic has proved the importance of research investment and the scientific publication.
In 2020, we increased the number of issues and published an August issue to meet the increased load of manuscripts submitted during COVID19 lockdown. Our objective was to enrich the scientific Neuroscience material presented by the journal with important topics. We also revised our editorial requirements for Case Reports to include a maximum of 4 tables or figures only. Likewise, the Brief Report material must include 15 References. These updates will be available in our Instructions to Author.
The strict check for duplicate publication and plagiarism will continue, and if detected; appropriate action will be taken based on international guidelines. A small number of articles were rejected last year due to extensive plagiarism and duplicate publication.
Highwire Migration. In the upcoming year, we will launch our new website with JCore, HighWire’s hosting platform. Highwire is a global provider of digital publishing solutions. They have led the evolution of digital publishing since the early days of the web, providing the scholarly publishing community with innovative technology and market-leading capabilities.
Type of manuscripts received for the year 2020.
This year we will implement continuous publication feature to our published contents. The article will be released immediately on the website once it is ready as a final version and later will be numbered and placed in a particular issue. More features also will be added to the XML format of the articles, citation tools, article alerts, related articles and social sharing.
In 2020, our average rejection rate is 33%. Reasons for rejection included papers outside the scope of the journal, low scientific quality, not meeting the requirements of the journal, authors failing to submit the revisions and other necessary requirements, and duplicate publication. We published 5 issues in 2020, with a total of 68 articles, which included: 37 originals, 3 editorial, 2 reviews, 12 case reports, 1 clinical note, 1 brief communication, 4 brief reports, 5 correspondences, and 1 systematic review. The average processing time from received to acceptance was 2.6 months, 3.2 months from acceptance to publication months, and 5.8 months from received to publications. However, the process time to publication is going to be significantly lowered with the implementation of the online continuous publications. 75% of the published articles were from Saudi Arabia, 4% from Turkey, and the remaining from Oman, Egypt, Taiwan, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, USA, UK, Germany, and Indonesia.
As associate editors of NSJ, we would like to present our special thanks to our reviewers, advisory boards, and editorial boards for their valuable comments and generous volunteer effort to maintain the standards of the journal’s publications. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our editors for their energy and enthusiasm in promoting the journal locally and internationally, and our present and previous staff for their dedication and commitment to the journal’s work.
We would like to thank the outgoing Board member (Dr. Saleh Baeesa, Dr. Adel Alhazani, Dr. Mohammed Almekhlafi, Dr. Taim Muayail, Dr. Emilio Perucca, Dr. Joseph LaManna) who had now finished their term and would like to welcome Dr. Ahmed Abulaban, Dr. Eman Bakhsh, Dr. Ismail Khatri, Dr. Saeed Alshuhri, Dr. Fisal Alotaibi to the Board. We are honored they have agreed to join the board, and their individual contributions will be of great value to the journal. We continue the international diversity of members that the current board offers. We hope all our readers continue to benefit from the published material, and we extend our sincerest thanks to our authors, readers, reviewers, and board members, and wish all a successful year.
Khalid Hundallah
Associate Editor
Waleed Khoja
Associate Editor
Afzal, Ali
Aguglia, Umberto
Akinyemi, Rufus
Al-Baradie, Raidah
AlSheikh, Fahad
Alghamdi , A
Alhammad, Othman
Almutairi, Aqeel Munahi
Aloba, Olutayo
Alotaibi, Faisal
Alshehri, Yousif
*Al-Suwaidan, Faisal
Alturki, Abdulrahman
Ambroszkiewicz, Jadwiga
Azkara, AiAdem
Azer, Samy A.
Banach, Marta
Bandaru, VCS Srinivasarao
Barnawi, Abdulwahed
Bashiri, Fahad
Baydin, Ahmet
Bermo, Mohammed S.
Bhat, Abdul Rashid
Boaventura, Paula
Bolash, Robert B.
Buck, Sarah
Campbell, Julie
Caplan, Louis R.
Chan, Lung
Chen, Bobei
Chen, Jefferson W.
Chen, Lei
Chen, Yingming Amy
Chien, Yin-Hsiu
Chowhan, Amit Kumar
Constantinescu, C. S.
Coppola, Giangennaro
Craig, Simon
Cubala, Wieslaw Jerzy
Denic, Srdjan
Dussor, Gregory
Elia, Maurizio
Elsheikh, Souda
Esteban, ANP
Farrag , MA
Feng, Zhiying
Fischer, Michael J. M.
Gao, Bulang
Garg, Ravindra Kumar
Ghoseiri, Kamiar
Gucuyener, Kivilcim
Hiew, Fu Liong
Holowatyj, Andreana N.
Huang, Ai-Bing
Hundsberger, T.
Inamasu, Joji
Inashkina, Inna
Jabri, Hussam
Jimã©Nez-Jimã©Nez, FéLix Javier
Joubert, B.
Joung, Boyoung
K, Sawanyawisuth
Kahilogullari, Gokmen
Kaufmann, Elisabeth
Keser, Zafer
Khatri, Ismail
Kluger, Gerhard
Kobayashi, Takashi
Koren, Johannes P.
Korovesis, Panagiotis
Lace, Baiba
Lambert, Simon
Langhammer, Birgitta
Leach, Paul
Li, Lai-Fung
Maessen, Jos G.
Machado, Ana CCDP
Machairas, Nikolaos
*Mahesh , PKB
Martin-Mcgill, Kirsty J.
Matar, Maher Al
Maul, Jochen
Mclachlan, Richard S.
Meguid, Nagwa
Mehta, Bharati
Mellon, Lisa
Mockus, Susan
Monroe, Eric J.
Mula, Marco
Nassim, Eman
Neuhaus, Oliver
Nikas, Demetrios C.
Noh, MSFM
Norrving, Bo
Osaka, Hitoshi
Owolabi, L. F.
Palve, Suchitra Sachin
Pandhi, Abhi
Pandian, Jeyaraj Durai
Paul, Friedemann
Peckham, Alyssa
Picket, Sarah
Primi, Caterina
Quinn, Terence Joseph
Raeisi, Sina
Raffa, Giovanni
Raina, Sunil Kumar
Renovanz, Mirjam
Rocque, Brandon G.
Rodriguez, Gustavo
Roldan-Valadez, Ernesto
Saad, Khaled
Saeed, Sahrai
Saeedi, Jameela
*Sami, Waqas
Sansone, Valeria A
Santos, Marcelo Volpon
Santos, Silvana
Schlenstedt, Christian
Shaker, Khalid
Sharma, Vijay K
Shetty, Ajoy Prasad
Shuaib, Ashfaq
Siciliano, Gabriele
Sipilã¤, Jussi
Soliman, Mohamed AR
Sonmez , FM
Spalice, Alberto
Specchio, Nicola
Stadio, Arianna Di
Starnowska-Sokol, Joanna
Stuppia, Liborio
Suzuki, Satoshi O
Szmuda, Tomasz
*Tabarki, Brahim
Taddei, Graziano
Takahashi, Satoru
Tanaka, Toshihide
Taniguchi, Masaaki
Tapia, Aniel Jessica Leticia Brambila
Tassi, Laura
Thenier-Villa, Jose Luis
Torres, Ulysses S.
Tziomalos, Konstantinos
Urbach, H
Valls-Sole, J
Vaughan-Graham, Julie
Vengadakrishnan, K.
Villard, Laurent
Wang, Shenglin
Xian, Ying
Zama, Daniele
Zaki, Maha S.
Zhu, Hua
Footnotes
* Reviewers who reviewed 3 or more articles for the year 2020
- Copyright: © Neurosciences
Neurosciences is an Open Access journal and articles published are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (CC BY-NC). Readers may copy, distribute, and display the work for non-commercial purposes with the proper citation of the original work.