TR: How does your involvement in research and clinical trials influence your approach to ACROR?
Dr. Perl: In the past, ACROR has emphasized the outcomes of various diseases, including the effect of social situation, race, sex, ethnicity and income level, on outcomes. I would like to move the journal more toward a balance of articles that includes basic and translational research, as well as outcomes. This [approach] will give it a portfolio somewhat similar to that of Arthritis & Rheumatology, but with outcomes articles that are the hallmark of Arthritis Care & Research, and doing it all in ACROR’s open access format.
TR: How has this combination portfolio played out in ACROR so far?
Dr. Perl: Right now, I am especially interested in increasing the number of basic science articles. I just looked at the papers coming out in the [January 2025] issue, and basic science articles make up about 20–25% of the articles overall. But ideally, I would like to increase that to 50%. To do that, we need submissions.
TR: Are you taking steps to attract more basic science manuscripts?
Dr. Perl: I am not actively seeking basic science papers, but I am welcoming them. The editorial board has been reshuffled, so we now have more board members who are basic scientists. I am hoping that will inspire people who have such studies or such areas of expertise to submit to this journal. Until now, they have had to take their submissions to basic science journals, even if they had rheumatological topics, but I would like to publish their work in this journal going forward.
TR: What else do you have planned for ACROR?
Dr. Perl: I would like to speed up the submission-to-publication time. Although the publication review process has significantly accelerated in the past year, I would like to recruit more reviewers and focus more on papers that are ready to publish, which will speed it up even more.
On the manuscript reviews, we typically accept less than half of the submitted papers for review, and they go out to ACROR’s deputy editors, Dr. Tsokos handles basic science articles and Dr. Lane focuses on clinical/translational research articles. [Author’s note: George C. Tsokos, MD, is chief of rheumatology and clinical immunology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston. Nancy E. Lane, MD, is a distinguished professor of rheumatology at University of California, Davis Health, Sacramento.]
