Indian Journal of Microbiology (INJM) is the official publication of the Association of Microbiologist of India (AMI). Since 2007, INJM has made monumental progress. With an average of four issues per year, starting from volume 47 of 2007 through volume 52 of 2012, INJM has also been published with theme based special and supplementary issues as supporting elements to the mainstream publications.

The collaboration with Springer, India Ltd in 2007 to co-publish it in association with AMI, has been one of the best moves for the future of INJM, and it helped us to progress.

During my tenure as Editor-in-Chief (starting from January 2007 to March 2013) of the journal, I am witness to number of changes. With everyone’s keen support; I have been partially successful in making it reach heights of acceptance. This has also been made possible because of the sincere and dedicated efforts of all the Editors and Reviewers associated with INJM. A continuous thought process consistent with maintaining the quality and overcoming shortcoming has always been the prime focus of INJM.

The journal is subscribed by nearly 6,500 Institutes and individuals. The increase in the number of submitted articles, a wide range of geographical distribution of authors and a consistently increasing subscription to the journal gives us confidence and hope of taking this journal further. As for the range of authors who have submitted their papers for consideration to INJM, they belong to around 39 different countries from almost all the continents. There have been contributions from USA, Canada, Korea, Japan, China, Spain, Brazil, etc.

During all these years all the Journal issues have been published on time. The gap between submission, processing and completion of articles has been shortened to less than three weeks. There are no articles carried forward from the previous years. All the articles which have been accepted for publication in subsequent issues of INJM can also be accessed online. Moreover, the website has been made user-friendly and it is possible for easy retrieval of articles along with linking of reference.

With the introduction of the pre-screening of articles i.e. editorial rejection being in place since May 2010, the average time from submission to first decision and for peer review has been reduced to 19.2 and 20.1 days, respectively. In this manner, 65 % of the articles were returned to authors without putting them into full reviewing process. This has tremendously reduced the unnecessary pressure which the Editors had been experiencing in the past. Around 200 articles have been subjected to peer review. The consistency of the appearance of every issue on time speaks volumes about the performance of the INJM team. Although the number of issues per year have been maintained at four, the number of articles published has been almost doubled to about 128 in comparison to the 64 articles per year earlier. This way we could keep pace with the increased number of submissions, which were 300 in 2010, 600 in 2011 and are likely to increase to around 900 in 2012.

The measure of our success was demonstrated in 2010 when INJM was shown to have ISI impact factor of 0.938. This led to the boost in submissions of articles from throughout the country. The performance of INJM has been outstanding especially, in the years 2010, 2011 and 2012.

However, it is alarming to note that the impact factor dropped to 0.511 for 2011. With such great efforts by all of us, we cannot afford to ignore such a startling call and it demands immediate attention for developing better strategies for the growth of the journal with special focus on the quality of manuscripts being published. Despite this, I still believe that 2012 has also been exceptional in terms of performance and foresightedness. During 2012 we have received around 800 articles.

With a fruitful collaboration with Springer India Ltd., AMI has renewed this contract for co-publishing INJM for a period of another 5 years from 2012 to 2016. Further, on a way to increase the periodicity of the journal from quarterly to bimonthly, AMI has decided to publish increased number of pages in the four regular issues for now, and also to change the frequency of the journal by introducing supplementary issues. At General Body Meeting, it has been decided to make INJM a bimonthly starting from 2014.

The journey of INJM from a hard copy edited format in 2006 to a platform of International standards that disseminates the contents to a global audience has been a wonderful experience. I now demit this office in March 2013 and Dr. V.C. Kalia takes over as new Editor-In-Chief of INJM. It has been a privilege to work with the INJM team which has always been very prompt in responding. With continuous efforts, I strongly encourage & believe we can make INJM a pioneer in the field of Microbiology and set an example for its readers through quality content.