In 2000, Nature Publishing Group launched the first three of the Nature Reviews series. By 2002, the series had grown to seven monthly review journals and quickly became the highest impact-factor journals in their fields — gaining a reputation for publishing superbly illustrated reviews written by leading international researchers. The Nature Reviews journals will double in size next month (April), when all eight Nature Clinical Practice journals will be relaunched as “Nature Reviews”. These clinical Nature Reviews journals will be printed in colour and will have the same high production values that have helped make the life-science Nature Reviews journals so successful, and each issue will contain more content, including Editorials, Research Highlights, News & Views, Reviews, Case Studies and Perspectives articles. The clinical journals will not alter their editorial scopes or commissioning strategies and will retain their distinguished external Editors-in-Chief and international Advisory Boards.
The clinical Nature Reviews journals (as of April 2009):
Nature Reviews Cardiology
Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology
Nature Reviews Endocrinology
Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Nature Reviews Nephrology
Nature Reviews Neurology
Nature Reviews Rheumatology
Nature Reviews Urology
Some authors’ questions answered:
I had a paper published in a Nature Clinical Practice journal. Will the citation to that paper change?
No, the citation will remain the same and the article will continue to be indexed in MEDLINE in perpetuity.
What will happen to the impact factor of the Nature Clinical Practice journals?
The clinical Nature Reviews journals will receive their first impact factors in June 2011. The Nature Clinical Practice journals will receive their last impact factor in June 2012. Thomson-Reuters, the company that calculates impact factors, will allow the two impact factors to be averaged in 2011 and 2012 to give the “unified” impact factor of the two journals.
I would like to write an article for one of the new Nature Reviews journals. What should I do?
The instructions to authors for each of the journals can be found on their homepages. Please contact the Editor with your proposal before writing the article.
Will the aims and scope of the journals change?
No, the journals will continue to publish a mix of news, opinion, and review articles to keep clinicians up to date with the latest advances in medical research.
Will the journals publish original research?
No. When Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine becomes Nature Reviews Cardiology in April, it will no longer publish original research. There are no plans to introduce original research in any of the clinical Nature Reviews journals.
Will readers be able to download PowerPoint presentations of the figures from the Review articles?
Yes.
Will the search function cover all content from the old Nature Clinical Practice issues and the new issues?
Yes, searches will include both journals, so readers only have to perform one search for each journal’s archive.
Will URLs change? If there is to be a redirect, for how long?
The articles published in the Nature Clinical Practice journals before April 2009 will be moved to the new Nature Reviews site in April. However, the old Nature Clinical Practice URLs will be redirected indefinitely to the new Nature Reviews URLs and all old dois will resolve to the articles in their new location. The new URLs and ISSNs are listed on the main Nature Clinical Practice page and are always available from the publications site index or the Nature family of journals page.