Editorial
Editorial: Presentation of the new editorial team
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ-PÉREZ
Instituto Cavanilles de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva, Universitat de València, C/ Catedrático José Beltrán, 2. 46980 Paterna. España. carlos.martinez-perez@uv.es
Chief-Editor
SONIA ROS-FRANCH
Departamento de Botánica y Geología, Universitat de València, C/ Dr. Moliner 50, E-46100 Burjassot (Valencia). sonia.ros@uv.es
SAMUEL ZAMORA
nstituto Geológico y Minero de España-CSIC. C/ Manuel Lasala 44 9ºB. 50006 Zaragoza (España). s.zamora@igme.es
HUMBERTO G. FERRÓN
School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building, 24 Tyndall Avenue Bristol, BS8 1TQ, United Kingdom. Humberto.Ferron@bristol.ac.uk
The present issue of the Spanish Journal of Palaeontology – SJP represents the first one entirely produced by the new editorial team. At this point, it is necessary to acknowledge the work done by our predecessors, led by our colleague Julio Aguirre, who have been able to maintain the scientific quality and periodicity of the Journal. This is especially remarkable given the problems related to the fact that SJP is entirely produced by our society and not by a big editorial. Their selflessly work has set the bases and high-quality standards of our Journal, warning us about the difficulty of our new commitment. We hope not to disappoint the trust that the Spanish Palaeontology Society has placed in this editorial team, the main goal of which being to continue with and improve the work done so far.
As previously did by all the former Editors of the SJP, we wanted to formally present the new editorial line and main goals. However, after reading past editorials, to a greater or lesser extent, most of the ideas and problems were already highlighted. After 35 volumes, and despite the important changes undertaken by the SJP in the last years, we are still suffering from the same problems: the small number of manuscripts received annually, and consequently the reduction of pages on the published volumes. This aspect is truly worrying, and closely related with the measurement of the ‘quality’ according to the Impact Factor metric of journals, but not by the quality of the contributions themselves. As we all know, our Journal does not belong to the “Club” of indexed journals however its future probably relies on the indexation by the Sciences Citation Reports. Unfortunately, this objective does not depend entirely on the editorial team, but we are facing all those aforementioned problems with excitement, hard work and with the essential support of the members of the Spanish Society of Palaeontology.
Said that, and based on the work carried out by the editorial teams that have preceded us, our intention is to advance in two main aspects that we believe are essential for the incoming years: increasing the accessibility and appearance of the SJP’s contributions and getting the indexation of our Journal to ensure its survival. Following the recent work done, we have kept moving on the first objective, with a substantial improvement on the appearance and accessibility of the contributions throughout our web page. The new web page with updated information about the Journal, Editorial Board, Guide for Authors, Ethical statements, a new interface for new submissions, and an ‘Early View’ section are already available. In parallel, we have designed a new fresh and more attractive layout for our manuscripts, highlighting its open access nature, which you can enjoy in the present issue. Among these changes, we would like to stand out the new ‘Early View’ section, where the articles, once accepted, are published in few weeks, completely formatted and fully citable.
Our second objective, the final indexation of our Journal in the Science Citation Index, is common to the last editorial teams. María Luisa Martínez Chacón, on her 2003 farewell, already noticed the reduction of publications due to the loss of interest in publishing in national journals as a result of the evaluation system for Spanish researchers, a situation that extends until nowadays. We all agree that the quality of a work does not depend entirely on the journal in which it is published, much less on its impact index, so no one can doubt about the quality of the works published in our Journal. However, we must stress that the national palaeontological community is reluctant to publish at the SJP because of its poor evaluation ranking, which at the same time, hinders its international expansion and its potential inclusion in the catalogue of indexed journals. Somehow, we need to break this dynamic, and the unique way is supporting our Journal to achieve, over the next few years, its inclusion at the Journal Citation Reports. We will put all our effort and time in trying to succeed, because it would certainly have a positive effect on the next future of the Journal. All the previous changes commented, together with the increase in the number of Associated Editors to speed up the review process, the open access nature, and the implementation of the ‘Early View’ and doi´s, converge on this objective.
Finally, we would like to end this Editorial asking for the collaboration of all you. Our goals will be harder to accomplish without your collaboration as members of the Society. We encourage you to actively contribute to the Spanish Journal of Palaeontology as it is everyone’s responsibility to give the definitive push for the future of the Journal and our Palaeontological Society. Therefore, we are looking forward to receive your contributions.
How to cite: Martínez-Pérez, C., Ros-Franch, S., Zamora, S., & Ferrón, H.G. 2021. Editorial. Spanish Journal of Palaeontology, 36 (2), 111-112.
Published online: 16 December 2021
https://doi.org/10.7203/sjp.36.2.22128
