In September 2013 the Council of the Spanish Association of Paediatrics (AEP) appointed a new Editorial Committee, which enthusiastically took up the challenge of continuing the upward trajectory achieved by the previous team and reaching the highest standards, as befits the calibre of Spanish paediatrics. When it came to establishing the objectives and strategic lines of action to meet this challenge, we needed to conduct a detailed analysis of how Anales stood in terms of its internal structure and the situation in which it found itself.

The editorial team set itself a series of objectives, which can be summed up as: a) increasing the quality, importance and impact of the manuscripts received, b) reducing response times to authors, c) improving the journal's impact factor and quartile ranking, d) strengthening our presence and recognition in the scientific world. Every year, in “Editors’ Corner”, coinciding with the Annual AEP Meeting, we have reported on the work done and the results obtained.1–4

The impact factor (IF) of Anales de Pediatría in 2017 (referring to 2016) is 1.140, the highest it has achieved since it first started to be indexed in the JCR database (it received its first impact factor, 0.363, in 2009). It is also the first time the journal has obtained an IF of more than 1 and the second time it has moved up to a higher quartile. This popular bibliometric indicator simply reflects the degree to which the articles accepted by a given journal are cited by authors who publish their work in the prestigious and select club of the Science Citation Index, to which Anales also belongs.

This has also been the year with the best self-citation rate (18%). A further important figure is the best immediacy index in the journal's history (0.426), demonstrating the interest of the manuscripts we publish by the fact that 43% of those potentially citable are cited in the first year after publication.

As a result, Anales has gained ground in the context of European general paediatric publications. Table 1 shows the IF and position of the 12 most important European general paediatric journals. Anales has currently reached 8th place among European journals, with an increase of 58% in its IF since 2013, the second highest increase recorded among these 12 journals (Fig. 1).

Figure 1.

Percentage changes in IF between 2013 and 2016.

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The IF we have attained has been accompanied by an increase in visits to the analesdepediatria.org website, which reached a total of 2,236,005 in the second year of bilingual publication, 28% of them from Spain.4 These figures are reinforced by those obtained through ScienceDirect, where a total of 815,295 visits were recorded, although in this case the country that accounts for most of them — 74% of the total — is the United States.4 This change is important from the quantitative point of view, but still more from the qualitative point of view, in terms of the obvious visibility that Anales has acquired at an international level.

With the changes to the editorial rules and the bilingual publication of the journal, the Editorial Committee believes it has taken two important steps on the path to making Anales a modern, competitive journal. There is no doubt that English is the language of science, and the decision taken by the Editorial Committee to start the electronic edition in English in June 2014 has placed the journal on the international scene. We are convinced that now, more than ever, publishing in English is our window on the scientific world.

Our responsibility as editors is now greater than ever, as we have to be capable of selecting the best scientific studies out of the increasingly interesting manuscripts submitted to us for evaluation. The real challenge of having an attractive journal is managing to choose the best among the good, and this is not always easy. In performing this task the unremitting efforts of the Editorial Committee and Editorial Board and peer review by independent experts are of crucial importance. The percentage of original submissions accepted for publication in Anales has undergone a change in the last 4 years, from 39.1% to 24%, because we are forced to be selective, and making the right selection is a great challenge for evaluators and editors.

After four years it is time to start a new phase. The best way of making the changes effective is to move forward, working both to consolidate the progress we have made and to attain new goals. From what has been achieved so far, we know how important it is to work together. With the new Editorial Committee, on which two of the associate editors will continue to serve, the ongoing upward progress of Anales is assured, and they will undoubtedly lend support to the transition from October.

For this Editorial Committee it has been invaluable to have the endorsement and backing of the whole Executive Committee which appointed us, and this has been vital to ensuring the editorial independence of Anales, an indispensable condition for achieving proper management from both the editorial and the scientific point of view.

It only remains for us to express our gratitude for the efforts of the previous editors, which made it possible to set Anales on its current path, to wish the new Editorial Committee every success, and to thank our authors, revisers and publishers for the support we have received over these four years.