The existence of gender differences in Spanish research, and therefore in Spanish academic publication, is an undeniable reality. Although such differences are smaller in biomedical sciences than in other fields of knowledge, that does not mean that we should feel satisfied and forget our responsibility in this area. Our journal, the official scientific organ of Spanish paediatricians, has gender balance on its Editorial Committee; of the 4 members of that Committee, half are women. Moreover, it is important to note that since June 2015 the proportion of women on the new Editorial Board has increased from 5% to 24%. In the same spirit, the time has come for our journal, from this June issue, to join those that already include authors’ names in full, without using initials.

The AEP has established a publication policy for documents representing the Association's official position. This policy, introduced in January 2016, is as follows: “This section only publishes manuscripts prepared by the various committees and working groups of the Asociación Española de Pediatría and specialist scientific societies, in response to a prior request from the association's Executive Committee. These articles will represent the AEP's official stance on various issues chosen in line with the association's editorial policy.”

The number of awards granted by the AEP in connection with the journal has been increased this year. As well as the Jerónimo Soriano Award, the Juan Rodríguez Soriano Award is being presented for the first time. The latter honours the research career of our beloved teacher, the wide readership of his work and the large number of citations it has received, as well as his tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Anales de Pediatría from 1995 to 2000. Both awards recognise the excellence of the articles selected and will be presented at the Opening Ceremony of the AEP Congress.

The Jerónimo Soriano Award is granted to what is considered to be the best original article published in the journal each year. It is selected by a jury that includes, among others, the three peer reviewers who have most often collaborated with Anales during the year. The winner in 2016 is the Original Article by Vilà de Muga et al. entitled “Impact on the improvement of paediatric emergency services using a standardised model for the declaration and analysis of incidents”.3

The Juan Rodríguez Soriano Award, created to recognise the article with most citations for the impact factor in 2015, goes to the Original Article by García-Muñoz Rodrigo et al. entitled “Hypothermia risk factors in the very low weight newborn and associated morbidity and mortality in a neonatal care unit”.4

Recently the AEP and Elsevier have come to an agreement to adopt the open access model (CC By-NC-ND) for our journal. As a result of business changes in the publishing field the AEP had to choose between this model and subscription, which would limit readership to paid-for collections as the form of distribution of the journal for the next few years. It finally decided on the open access option, which enables it to continue offering Anales free of charge to the scientific community and also makes it possible for the authors of research funded with public money to self-archive their work in a repository in fulfilment of open-access mandates, including that laid down in Article 37 of the Spanish Science, Technology and Innovation Act.5

An area of potential expansion for Anales is the Ibero-American paediatric community, given the links that have existed for years and the facility afforded by sharing a common language. With the aim of increasing collaboration, a network is to be established immediately by the editors of the journals of the Ibero-American paediatric societies. The Editorial Committee of Anales will be initially responsible for coordinating this network. The Committee will implement policies enabling progress to be made in disseminating scientific content and organising collaborative actions supported by new communication technologies.