Neurological Research and Practice – the premier journal of the German Society of Neurology: recent development and future perspectives

Five years ago, on February 28, 2019 a series of 7 articles was released in the first edition of Neurological Research and Practice (NRP), the new open access online only journal of the German Society of Neurology (DGN), published in English by BMC, a subsidiary of Springer Nature. The aim of the German Society of Neurology was to make the dimensions and quality of neurological research and clinical practice in Germany better known in the international scientific community. Of course, German neurologists have been publishing quite successfully in leading international journals for decades and some German neuroscientists and clinicians are among the most renowned and cited researchers in the world, but we believe that this does not fully reflect the very active and innovative scientific base of German neurology. Now, after 5 years, the journal has achieved broad acceptance, is listed in all relevant index sites, and has received the first Impact Factor from Clavariate in 2024 and the first Citescore (Elsevier) in 2023.

With this editorial, we would like to highlight some important achievements, point out interesting details, and announce changes in the journal’s editorial board that will come into effect in 2025 and 2026, respectively.

Metrics of the journal

After registering with PubMed, EMBASE, SCOPUS and the Web of Science, the journal received its first CiteScore as early as 2023, which was the earliest possible time given the algorithms behind this measurement. The first CiteScore issued in 2023 was 5.7 for 2022 and became 7.4 for 2023. In 2024, the first Journal Impact Factor of 3.6 was published for 2023. Both impact measures place the journal in the highest quintile of clinical neurology and neuroscience journals. The journal’s 5-year impact factor is 4.5 for 2023. The h5 index for 2022 is 23.

Publications

The journal publishes reviews, research reports, correspondence (formerly letters), selected abbreviated guidelines of the German Society of Neurology in English, clinical study protocols and standard operating procedures. The annual number of submissions is shown in Fig. 1. It has now stabilized at around 175 submissions per year. The rejection rate has reached 72%. While initially the majority of submissions came from Germany we have received more international than German submissions in the last two years (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1

Submissions to Neurological Research and Practice between 2018 and 2024

Fig. 2

Author region of origin of submitted and accepted manuscripts

Figure 3 shows the monthly successful downloads of full-text articles over a period of five years, which have now leveled at between 60.000 and 70.000 downloads per month. The leading countries for article downloads are the USA, Canada, the UK, the Philippines, Australia and India.

Table 1 lists the 10 most frequently accessed articles between 2019 and 2023. It is interesting to note that almost all publication types are represented in this list, even 2 letters are among the top 10 most accessed publications. Table 2 shows the list of the 10 most cited articles from the same period. Some articles made it into both lists. Importantly, SOP articles and clinical trial protocols are also included in this list.

Fig. 3

Full text article downloads between 2020–2024 according to COUNTER usage data on Google BigQuery. Downloads from SpringerLink, Nature.com and BMC Platform

Table 1 10 most frequently accessed articles between 2019 and 2024

Table 2 10 most frequently cited articles between 2019 and 2024

Organization of the journal

The German Society of Neurology had appointed Werner Hacke, Professor Emeritus of Neurology at the University of Heidelberg, to serve as the founding Editor-in-Chief of NRP. In the first two years, all manuscripts were edited exclusively by him, with significant support from an international editorial board. With the increase in submissions, we tested a system with more than 25 section editors assigned by the editor-in-chief and working as editing editors. The new structure was introduced in 2022 and worked reasonably well but caused some delays in processing manuscripts. From 2025, we will work with a smaller group of Associate Editors and Editorial Advisors for Statistics, History, Neuropediatrics, Neuroradiology and Genetics (further information on the Journal Webpage https://biomedcentral-neurolrespract.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es).

The Editorial Board has also undergone major changes and now includes young professionals who were very productive and helpful in the early years of the journal. Most importantly, the current EiC will step down by the end of 2025 and the next EiC has already been appointed by the German Neurological Society: It will be Professor Wolf-Rüdiger Schäbitz, Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology at Evangelisches Klinikum Bethel and Bielefeld University. His bioscetch has been added to the journal´s website starting page. In 2025, we will both share the tasks of the EiC to ensure a smooth transition. Our collaboration has already begun and has proven to be a smooth process.

I (WH) would like to thank the Presidents and the board members of the German Neurological Society for their trust in offering me the founding of this journal and for their continuous support during the first years. I am grateful for the help of the Managing Director of the Society and his team and for quick solutions when unexpected hurdles arose. I am more than grateful to all the active members of the editorial board and the section editors for their continuous support and perseverance when reviewers did not respond, did not deliver on time or declared unavailability after weeks. We all know how difficult it is to find reviewers who deliver high quality reviews - a big thank you to all of them. The most responsive and reliable colleagues have been recognized and have been promoted to the Editorial board. For details regarding the editorial board please visit the Journal Webpage https://biomedcentral-neurolrespract.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es and open “Editorial Board”.

Future development

As documented by publications, impact factor and cite score, as well as other journal metrics, Neurological Research and Practice has become a visible voice of the German Neurology Society. This achievement will be further expanded and developed. Modifications of the editorial board as presented above, further internationalization, the use of multimedia presentation and the augmentation of social media activities will be deployed to attract readers and authors thereby leading to a continuous influx of high profile original manuscripts, review articles and guidelines.