As the Official Journal of the Metastasis Research Society, Clinical and Experimental Metastasis is now entering its 25th year of publication. Since its early days, it has sought to publish the highest quality science related to the underlying pathology, biology, biochemistry and molecular biology that leads to the progression of tumours to malignancy and metastasis. We have also published preclinical and clinical studies aimed at targeting and preventing metastasis.

Good news: Your journal has grown from 4 to 8 issues/year as the field of metastasis research has evolved during the past quarter century. The average turnaround from submission to first decision has been shortened from months to 45 days. The time from acceptance to galley proofs to online publication has been shorted to 30 days. The impact index has steadily risen since 2002 and again is approaching 3.00. With a steady stream of high quality manuscripts, reviewers have been able to be more selective in their recommendations; so, these trends are expected to continue.

Challenges for the future: Despite its clinical importance, metastasis receives a disproportionately small proportion of increasingly restrictive biomedical research budgets around the world. Biomedical publishing has undergone a renaissance, with pressures for open access and associated financial challenges to publishers. With the decreased time from discovery to publication, expectations are for even faster publication and increasing pressures to be productive.

With those pressures, there have been more cases of plagiarism, scientific fraud and misconduct. Unfortunately, Clinical and Experimental Metastasis has not been immune from this trend. Independent overseers have identified plagiarism of whole articles and significant excerpts from Clinical and Experimental Metastasis in other journals. Editors and reviewers have spotted manuscripts with misrepresented figures and findings and plagiarism.

The Editors of Clinical and Experimental Metastasis strongly believe that the scientific advances depend upon the integrity of investigators and the purity of the scientific publications resulting therefrom. We join with other editors in restating non-negotiable expectations of absolute scientific integrity in the performance of experiments published in the journal, no misrepresentation of the data (including minimal manipulation of images so that no content is obscured or eliminated) and accurate verbal and visual representation of original work. Clinical and Experimental Metastasis publishes only original scientific research. Authors of any article breaching these policies will withdraw the paper and will be prohibited from publishing in Clinical and Experimental Metastasis for 5 years. We believe that strict adherence to these guidelines is essential for advancement of the science and shortening the time to when metastasis will be a problem of the past.