Editorial

1Urology Journal    Vol 5    No 1    Winter 2008

Urology Journal in 2008
A New Look

Urol J. 2008;5:1-2. 
www.uj.unrc.ir

Happy new year to all our readers, contributors, 
reviewers, consultants, and editorial advisors. We 
welcome the New Year—a time for reflection, 
transition, and looking ahead. The Urology 
Journal editorial team wishes all our readers an 
enjoyable, healthy, and successful new year. 
As 2008 has arrived, we at the Urology Journal 
are very pleased to enthusiastically unveil our 
new look. A major goal of the editorial board 
and staff of the journal is to meet our readers’ 
informational needs and respond to readers’ 
requests and suggestions for future content 
development. A transition can be thought 
of as a turning point or a passage from one 
contextual pattern to another. After several 
years of enormous activity and transitions, we 
are beginning a period where we are focused 
on improving our communications, processes, 
and procedures. What is down the path for the 
Urology Journal over the next months? One very 
exciting outcome in 2007 will be our indexing 
in MEDLINE/PubMed, a benchmark on the 
road to becoming a prestigious journal in the 
field of urology. We owe our improved position 
to the quality of our authors’ contributions, the 
quality of our reviewers and their comments, 
and the hard work of our industrious editorial 
and production teams. We also thank our 
executive editor Dr Farhat Farrokhi, whose sharp 
critical eye has done so much to improve many 
manuscripts.

The Urology Journal grew in many ways in 2007, 
and with the help of you all will continue to 
grow in 2008. We strive to publish information 
that is evidence based and useful. We recognize 
that our readers are busy clinicians; therefore, 
every issue of the Urology Journal offers a variety 
of concise articles. We were able to focus more 
on subjects of interest falling within the scope of 
our journal. Processing, editing and reviewing 

more submissions, publishing more papers, and 
publishing those papers more quickly, all are 
among our goals in 2008. 

It would be hard to find anyone to dispute the 
idea that free access to the research literature 
is a laudable aim. The Urology Journal already 
provides entirely free access to the journal. Our 
journal can be accessed directly through its web 
site (www.uj.unrc.ir). In 2008, readers and authors 
across the world will be able to continue to 
participate in the Urology Journal at no cost and 
without the bias that can come from commercial 
sponsorship. We are pleased to announce that 
as from January 2007 the journal’s manuscript 
submission and peer review process have all 
occurred on-line. This should speed up our 
processes significantly and we hope authors will 
be pleased with the new technology.

In keeping with the recommendations of the 
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 
the Urology Journal editorial team adopted the 
definition of editorial freedom endorsed by the 
World Association of Medical Editors. We were 
able to maintain our high standards of quality 
peer review. We would like to thank our large 
team of national and international reviewers, 
who provided us with invaluable advice on 
manuscripts submitted. Consider joining our 
team as a Urology Journal reviewer. Reviewers 
critique 4 to 6 manuscripts per year and may 
decline a review because of time constraints.

In relation to the Urology Journal, in 2007, a sum 
of 145 manuscripts were submitted. The 4 issues 
published during the year consisted of a total of 
58 articles (5 reviews, 32 original articles, 15 case 
reports, 3 editorials, and 2 letters) adding up to 
262 pages. The geographical origins of the articles 
other than Iran were as follows: 3 from USA and 
1 from Greece, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Australia, 



Urology Journal in 2008—Safarinejad

2 Urology Journal    Vol 5    No 1    Winter 2008

and Saudi Arabia, each. The submissions last year 
were increased by 72%. We hope that 2008 will 
also be a fruitful year for the journal, and that 
we can increase the interest of our readers and 
authors.

One indisputable role of the Urology Journal is 
to educate. We are making a concerted effort 
to focus our publications on 3 major areas: 
education, public health issues, and leadership 
issues. As we continue to evolve, we have 
solidified how we view our focus. Such reflection 
is the genesis of our decision to concentrate more 
on our ongoing purposes. The journal’s primary 
focus is on publishing credible peer-reviewed 
researches that provide the evidence-based 
rationale needed for making clinical decisions. 

In 2008, we as editorial board, shall be happy to 

continue serving you as authors and readers of 
our open-access journal devoted to all aspects of 
urology. In the forthcoming years, we envisage 
continuing growth in the Urology Journal—a 
growth in readers, activities, and financial 
resources, and further expansion of our coverage. 
In 2008, we shall continue to work for the further 
advancement of the Urology Journal, among 
other things, by stepping up our efforts to solicit 
reviews on subjects of topical interest from active 
members of the research community. 

We look forward to a productive and successful 
2008!

Mohammad Reza Safarinejad
Associate Editor, Urology Journal