‘ANDROLOGY’– The New Journal of the American Society of Andrology and the European Academy of Andrology

Andrology is the study of health issues specific to men, with a focus on basic aspects of their reproductive system (gonads, endocrine and accessory organs), and diagnosis and treatment of medical problems associated with infertility, sexual dysfunction and urological problems. In medicine, the development of Andrology as a specific specialty is rather recent; it had often been considered a subspecialty of urology or endocrinology. The field of Andrology, emerging over the last 40 years, has produced several specialty journals covering both the basic scientific and clinical areas. The International Journal of Andrology (IJA) began publication in 1978 and became the official journal of the European Academy of Andrology (EAA) in 1992. The American Society of Andrology (ASA) launched the Journal of Andrology (JA) in 1980. These two Journals have been the leading journals in the field of Andrology with current impact factors of 3.6 (IJA) and 3.1 (JA).

Andrology remains a small and specialized field, and the size of both journals has been modest, each publishing about 600 pages per year. With the goal of increasing the visibility, impact and prominence of both journals, and to better promote the field of Andrology the EAA and ASA have decided jointly to create a single, even more prominent journal, Andrology. The international spirit of cooperation between the two societies and the enhanced availability of worldwide electronic communication has made it possible to jointly publish this new journal. The two societies will share equally in the management and editorial decisions of Andrology and in profits and losses from journal revenues and expenses.

The two original journals will actively continue to publish throughout 2012, with the last issues being published as November/December 2012 issues. New papers submitted to these journals will be accepted for review through the 31 March 2012. We encourage members of the two societies to continue to send their best work to JA or IJA so that we can keep the journals strong as we go into the merger. It is possible that some papers submitted to the original journals that need to be sent back to authors for significant revisions might not be accepted in time. If they are accepted later, they will appear in Andrology. Starting in late 2012, the back issues of both JA and IJA will be hosted on-line at the Wiley Online Library.

The EAA and ASA are pleased to announce that a contract has been signed with Wiley-Blackwell, publisher of the IJA, for publication of Andrology. The Journal will be published both in print and on-line, bimonthly, with accepted articles published on-line shortly after acceptance. We believe that there will be cost savings to both societies by eliminating duplications of effort in publishing and that the merged journal will result in increased profitability and income for the benefit of both societies. Ewa Rajpert-De Meyts M.D., Ph.D. of the Rigshospitalet of Copenhagen University and Douglas Carrell Ph.D., H.C.L.D. of the University of Utah Medical School have been chosen as Co-Editors-in-Chief. Members of the ASA (including trainees) and EAA will receive on-line subscriptions to Andrology with print subscriptions available at a modest extra charge. The greater distribution of the new journal will be a benefit to authors; also society members will now have access to the content that would have been in separate journals.

We believe that this larger, merged journal can more effectively compete with other journals and attract better articles. This more prominent journal should increase the prestige of the discipline of Andrology. Andrology will continue to publish basic, translational, clinical and epidemiological research in andrology and will include all topics emphasized in both of the original journals. These include among other areas, hormonal regulation, spermatogenesis, reproductive tract, accessory sex organs and external genitalia, sperm function and quality, prostate diseases including cancer and male sexual physiology. Studies using mammalian and non-mammalian model systems and molecular and cellular investigations to understand male reproductive health and function in humans and important animal species will be considered. In addition, guidelines in clinical andrology and andrology laboratory science, as well as ASA and EAA society information will appear in Andrology.

Journal impact factors are published annually (June of each year) by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports. Although it will take several years for Andrology to fully establish its own impact factor, the combined impact factor of IJA and JA and Andrology can be computed to obtain an Impact Factor that authors can use to document the Impact of the Journal in which they are publishing. The June 2014 ISI Impact Factor report will list IJA and JA separately and represent the number of citations in 2013 to articles in the journals in 2011 and 2012 divided by the number of articles published in those 2 years; the numerators and denominators can be easily combined to calculate an overall impact for the two original Journals. The 2015 ISI impact factor will list IJA, JAndrol, and Andrology. For IJA and JAndrol the number will represent the citations in 2014 to articles published in 2012 divided by the number of articles published in that 1 year; for Andrology the impact factor will represent citations in 2014 to articles published in 2013 divided by the number of articles published in that 1 year. Again an overall impact factor can be calculated by combining all three numerators and denominators. Thus, an effective impact factor of the original and merged journals can be obtained during the transition. From 2016 onwards, only the impact factor of the new journal Andrology will appear in the ISI data base. Based on our goals for the merged journal, strong support of ASA and EAA for the merger, and an outstanding Editorial and Publishing team, we expect the eventual impact factor of Andrology to surpass those previously achieved by JA and IJA.

The first issue of Andrology will be published in January 2013. A submission site using the Scholar One Manuscripts on-line submission and peer review system opens at the start of April 2012 for submission of new manuscripts of original research in Andrology. The Editors will be soliciting potentially outstanding review articles and individuals with suggestions for reviews should contact one of the Editors-in-Chief. We encourage ASA and EAA members to support the launch of Andrology by submitting their best papers, especially during these most important first several years of the journal.