30 years of EFORT publications – where we stand today

Publications have always been at the heart of EFORT’s activities. Indeed, since its inception and the first meeting in 1993, the European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology (EFORT) has published 21 volumes of Instructional Lectures at its congresses. In recent years, the Instructional Lectures have been under the editorship of EFORT Open Review (EOR) Scientific Editors George Bentley (2016-2020), followed by Stephen R. Cannon in 2021. A number of publishers were involved, including Springer and the British Editorial Society of Bone & Joint Surgery. Many books were edited by EFORT throughout the years including Karsten Dreinhöfer et al’s. ‘EUROHIP’ in 2009, ¹ Muharrem Yazici’s ‘Non-idiopathic spine deformities in young children’ in 2011, ² and Karl Knahr’s three volume series ‘Tribology in total hip arthroplasty’ in 2011, 2012 and 2013. ^3,4,5 EFORT also published a major 5000-page, seven volume textbook in 2014 under the editorship of George Bentley encompassing the entirety of our specialty. ⁶ However, the need for a regular scientific EFORT publication became apparent and in 2010, the first issue of volume 1 of the new journal European Orthopaedics and Traumatology (EOTR) appeared during the EFORT Madrid Congress. The publication was to be the official journal of EFORT. EORT was edited by EFORT with Wolfhart Puhl as Editor-in-Chief and published by Springer, a major publishing company. EOTR was conceived as a general orthopaedics and traumatology journal with a mix of original articles, reviews and sounding boards. It was a print publication distributed widely to all members of the societies participating in EFORT, representing more than 40 000 potential readers throughout Europe and more than 7 000 institutions worldwide. EOTR published 329 articles in six volumes between 2010 and 2015. Although the journal thrived, being hardcopy paper-based, it represented a major financial commitment for EFORT and the publisher. Interestingly, few readers realize that much of the cost of a paper-based journal lies in postage fees. It therefore soon became clear that a new and novel approach was needed if EFORT’s publications were to be recognized internationally.

The next step therefore was to focus efforts in the direction of Open Access online-only publishing. Because surgeons remain attached to the printed word, it was decided at the beginning that the new publication would, in addition to monthly online-only issues, have one paper issue per year to be distributed to the participants of the annual EFORT congress as part of the Congress package fee. The new journal would, in addition to reviews, contain the Instructional Lectures delivered at the Congress. Also, the new publication would publish only review articles. The reviews should contain up-to-date material on topics of interest to juniors and seniors alike. Some reviews would be very general and others extremely specialized, thereby reaching a wide range of potential readers. It was believed that an educational tool of this nature was missing on the European orthopaedic and traumatology scene. Furthermore, it was decided to resolutely and identifiably brand the publication and therefore the new journal title ‘EFORT Open Reviews’ (EOR) was chosen. In the beginning, the main focus was on publishing high-quality narrative reviews but in recent times increased submissions of systematic reviews and meta-analyses have expanded the scope of the journal.

The difficult part now was finding a suitable publishing partner. All the major medical publishers were approached. Finally, it was decided to entrust the new EOR to The British Editorial Society of Bone & Joint Surgery (BESBJS) based in London under the imprint Bone & Joint Publishing (BJP). The agreement between BJP and EFORT was signed on 14^th December 2015. The reasons for this choice were manifold. BJP is dedicated to publishing orthopaedic and traumatology journals. It is a huge advantage when a whole publishing team is devoted to one field and has intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of a specialty. BJP rapidly set up the Open Access formalities needed for EOR to come into existence. EOR is published in English and what better guarantee of impeccable language editing than collaborating with a UK based publisher. Bespoke, hand-tailored publishing is another advantage of working with BJP’s small, dedicated team. There being few interlocutors – essentially Managing Director Richard Hollingsworth, Managing Editor Mandy Webb and Production Editors Charlotte Parkins and Nick Whelan – decisions may be made very rapidly without having to wade through the many layers and intricacies of the large bureaucracies often found in major publishing houses.

On the EFORT side, the EOR team consists of an editorial group led by the Editor-in-Chief and the Scientific Editor Stephen R. Cannon, who is responsible for the Instructional Lectures as well as the Oncology section and recently took over from George Bentley, now our Honorary Scientific Editor. The Associate Editors are each responsible for a specific section: Enric Caceres Palou for Spine; Marino Delmi for Foot & Ankle; Przemyslaw Lubiatowski for Shoulder & Elbow; Daniel Fritschy for Sports & Arthroscopy; Enrique Gómez Barrena and Bernd Grimm for Basic Science and General Orthopaedics; Philippe Kopylov for Hand & Wrist; Hermes Miozzari for Knee; Julio de Pablos for Paediatrics; Ulrich Stöckle for Trauma; and Luigi Zagra for Hip. On the administrative side, Adrian Ott, EFORT CEO, is responsible for the financial aspects and liaising with the BESBJS management, assisted by Education Manager Susan Davenport and Corporate Communication Officer Axelle Devun Riva.

All pre-acceptance processes happen in EOR’s manuscript submission and peer review system ‘ScholarOne’ which facilitates the entire workflow from first submission through peer review and various revision cycles to final decision. With all submissions subject to rigorous double-blind peer review, the system supports our Associate Editors in their task of selecting and appointing suitable expert peer reviewers for each manuscript. Once reviewed, Associate Editors add their own recommendations, and the article is passed to the Editor-in-Chief for final decision. Following acceptance, production commences from editing, typesetting and author proofing to final publication and indexing. Being a sole open access journal, all articles are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication on the EOR website (https://online.boneandjoint.org.uk/journal/eor), hosted on ‘Atypon Literatum’, a Wiley-owned independent online publishing and website development platform and home to some of the world’s largest publishers.

The first EOR article was published online in January 2016, and by May 2017 inclusion in the PubMed database was already approved. EOR is now indexed in PubMed with free full-text provided in PubMed Central, in Scopus, Google Scholar and the Directory of Open Access Journals as well as in the Web of Science Core Collection. From 2016 to the end of 2021 around 470 highly cited reviews will have been published. Our first impact factor, scoring an outstanding 2.295, was awarded in June 2020; this year’s impact factor is expected for late June and will be announced during the Congress. EOR ranks high on the list of Orthopaedics and Traumatology journals with impact factors worldwide. The prospects of improving impact factor and journal ranking are deemed excellent both by the EOR team and by independent observers.

With the financial survival of EOR at stake, Article Processing Charges of €1500 per accepted article were introduced from 1 November 2020. Sharing the fate of many subscription-free publications, this puts us on the same level as most Gold Open Access journals in our category. Waivers for HINARI countries as determined by the WHO are being granted.

Owing to the pandemic, in-person meetings have not been possible since 2020, therefore obliging EOR to publish its annual Instructional Lecture Congress Issue as an online-only edition rather than in print. We hope that you will nevertheless enjoy the 2021 EFORT Congress Issue which features a wide range of excellent Instructional Lectures across the field of orthopaedics and traumatology (https://online.boneandjoint.org.uk/eor/congress-issue-2021). All Instructional Lectures published since 2016 will also continue to be available on the EOR website.

Over the past six years, the collaboration with Bone & Joint Publishing has been extremely satisfactory. Working with a publishing team of seasoned professionals offering bespoke services, excellent communication and simply exceptional dedication has been an enriching and enlightening experience.

I wish to thank all involved in the success story of EOR thus far for their unwavering support and tireless efforts, making it the journal it is today. Our journey continues.