Dear Reader,

I am very pleased to present to you here, starting with this Volume 29, the new increased trim size of our “Red” journal; it now has the same format as all the other journals in the field. It is not the small kid on the block anymore. You have also probably noticed that the number of papers has increased significantly over the past year and will continue to do so. The number of submissions continues to increase over the years, as well as the rejection rate, which is already over 60 % and needs to go to approximately 70 % in order to handle all the submissions. That means that the quality of the Journal will increase steadily, and the Impact Factor should then also continue to increase.

In this first issue of the year, we also thank all the reviewers who have put so much effort in reviewing all of the manuscripts. In 2012, we had more than 500 reviewers judging the qualities of all these submitted manuscripts: a phenomenal number! That clearly proves that the decision to accept or reject is really based on the work of many independent scientists and not only of a few—it’s not a closed shop. What is also remarkable, is that a total of 75,000 full-text downloads were realized in the year 2011, and these numbers have also increased steadily. That is more than 6,250 downloads per month! This demonstrates that our published papers are truly read.

With all these good news items, I wish you much pleasure in reading the International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging in 2013 and each year following, and encourage you to submit your best manuscripts to our Journal.

Thank you so much, also on behalf of our Associate and Adjunct Editors

Editor-in-chief