As the editor-in-chief of Polish Archives of Internal Medicine (Pol Arch Intern Med), I am delighted to announce that the official journal of the Polish Society of Internal Medicine has achieved a record 2-year impact factor (IF) of 5.218. Briefly, this most widely recognized metric of a journal’s prestige released by Clarivate Analytics on June 28, 2022 was calculated by dividing all citations made in 2021 by the number of citable items, that is, original and review articles, published in 2019 and 2020. The current IF proves how strong our standing among Polish journals is, regardless of the field of science (Table 1). No doubt, Pol Arch Intern Med is the best Polish medical journal. Ten years since the first 2011 IF of 1.367, with its gradual increase (Figure 1), and 99 years since the foundation of our periodical by Dr. Gluzinski in 1923, the IF of 5.218 clearly indicates that our journal publishes high-quality research that attracts the attention of peers.

Table 1. Top 15 Polish journals based on 2021 Journal Citation Reports by Clarivate Analytics

Journal

2021 impact factor

Cellular & Molecular Biology Letters

8.702

Oeconomia Copernicana

6.574

Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering

5.687

Polish Archives of Internal Medicine

5.218

Reviews on Advanced Materials Science

5.028

Biology of Sport

4.606

Archives of Civil and Mechanical Engineering

4.042

Pharmacological Reports

3.919

Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis

3.831

Kardiologia Polska

3.710

Archives of Medical Science

3.707

Cardiology Journal

3.487

Ecohydrology & Hydrobiology

2.957

Journal of Human Kinetics

2.923

Advances in Medical Sciences

2.852

Figure 1. Journal impact factor of Polish Archives of Internal Medicine from 2011 to 2021

Despite growing criticism of the IF owing to its inherent shortcomings and misuse, it is known that publication in a high-impact journal indicates the putative quality of a paper regardless of its actual citation count. A submission decision is not made solely based on the journal’s metrics. However, the higher the IF, the larger the number of submissions that is likely to be expected. A total annual number of submissions exceeding 1000 should be achieved to increase the chances of selecting more high-quality research.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge effect of the IFs, and Pol Arch Intern Med is no exception, demonstrating that this disease has been an important challenge for internal medicine specialists all over the world. The article by Prof. G. Lippi on the association of hypertension with the severity of COVID-19 was cited in 2021 more than 100 times. The impact of a large number of well-cited papers on COVID-19 refers to most biomedical journals, therefore we are celebrating the bibliometric success of this year.

The year 2022 is challenging. Without any financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science, starting from January 2022, the open-access article processing charges were substantially increased to maintain the highest standard of editorial excellence and ensure further growth. The journal continues to keep abreast of new trends in publishing with focus on the increasing presence in social media. Time is of key importance in our publishing strategy; therefore, the task for 2022 is to speed up the peer review process. Presently, the time since submission to reviews has been estimated at a mean of 23 days in the first half of the current year. We wish to be better and we would be pleased to hear from you on what could be changed in our editorial policy.

We would like to thank all the authors, reviewers, and readers for their ongoing support of our journal. The whole Editorial Board substantially contributed to our current standing. Special thanks go to Prof. Grzegorz Gajos and Prof. Tomasz Stompór, as well as our Managing Editor since 2021, Ms. Katarzyna Toffel. We encourage investigators to cite any materials published in the journal in 2020 or 2021 in order to sustain our relative standing in the field of general medicine, reflected by the 2022 IF to be announced in June 2023.

Last but not least, I am proud that despite growing competition, Pol Arch Intern Med, the flagship journal of Polish internists, reinforces its position year by year as a leader and trendsetter for in-house editorial services among Polish biomedical periodicals.