Introduction

Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology is the official journal of the German Society of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology (DGPT), founded in 1873 (https://www.springer.com/journal/210/?IFA; last accessed August 2nd, 2022). It is the oldest journal in this field of science.

Founded by Bernhard Naunyn, Edwin Klebs, and Oswald Schmiedeberg, the first volume was printed by the “Vogel” publishing company from Leipzig on February 14th, 1873. Naunyn and Schmiedeberg met in Dorpat earlier, where both had professorships (Starke 1998). They later engaged Klebs to join their cause in creating a scientific magazine, which combined experimental studies from practical medicine with knowledge from theoretical medicine. Historically the journal was called “Archiv für Experimentelle Pathologie und Pharmakologie,” which changed several times during the decades and was later renamed to the current known title (Starke 1998).

On the 125th anniversary of Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology in 1998, Starke (1998) published an extensive history of the journal. The focus of the review was the history of the journal and analysis of the scientific contributions of individual scientists. The 150th anniversary of Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology in 2023 motivated us to investigate the journal more from a numerical perspective, focusing on bibliometric parameters. Our data yield a multi-facetted picture showing that editing a scientific journal is a cultural human activity that is influenced by many more factors more than just scientific data.

Materials and methods

Editorial analysis

To investigate developments of the journal between 2006 and 2021, we analyzed the Editorial Reports of Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology. We included all Editorial Reports available. The Clarivate database (https://clarivate.com, last accessed May 30th, 2022) was used to complete our data records. The Clarivate database was also used to identify the authors with the most publications in the journal. We named the top-15 authors and assigned general research fields for each author by researching them on Pubmed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, last accessed June 9th, 2022). We used Excel to create charts and tables.

Most-cited articles

Using the Clarivate database (https://clarivate.com, last accessed May 30th, 2022), we identified the journal’s most-cited articles. The most-cited articles represent the journal’s highest cited publications. The ranking is solely based on number of citations recorded until the data retrieval date, December 8th, 2021. Only documents published after 1947 are included, due to missing information for earlier publications in the database. We decided to focus on the 100 most-cited articles, analyzing the topics, article types, citations, and cities and countries of origin. The article titles were used to assign research topics, based on the chapters of the textbook “Basic Knowledge of Pharmacology” (Seifert 2019). Each article was assigned to one chapter. We introduced “Purinergic System” and “Substance P” as additional topics, which are not chapters of the textbook. Especially the most-cited article was investigated more closely, including the analysis of authors, research organization, number of citations, and number of registered accesses since 2013. We extracted data from Clarivate using Excel charts.

Zero-cited articles

We analyzed articles with zero citations published from 2015 to 2022. First, we defined the document types. We focused on original articles and review articles, analyzing topics as well as researching the author’s region of origin. We repeated the same approach as introduced before and used “Basic Knowledge of Pharmacology” (Seifert 2019) and its chapters to assign topics of an article. For the geographical analysis, we listed the cities and countries of origin. We used SpringerLink to research origins and used the first affiliation listed (https://www.springer.com/journal/210, last accessed May 30th, 2022). We received the data listed in Excel sheets. Information such as article titles, authors, and citations was provided.

Metadata

The metadata of Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology were extracted from the journal website (https://www.springer.com/journal/210, last accessed May 30th, 2022).

Metadata-publication languages

Publication languages were studied from 1947 to 1976. Although English was appointed the official publication language for the journal in 1972, the last articles in another language were published in 1975. Publication languages in these years were both German and English. We listed the annual numbers and percentages of papers in tables and designed charts using Excel.

Metadata topics

We analyzed the topics of articles published in the years 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. We used the chapters from the textbook “Basic Knowledge of Pharmacology” (Seifert 2019) and defined the theme by title of articles. Each article was assigned to one chapter. We introduced “Purinergic System,” “Substance P,” “Editorial Analysis,” and “Drugs for Treatment of Parasitic Infections” as additional topics, which are not chapters of the textbook. Annual shares were calculated, and numbers were rounded up to 0.5% in this calculation. We worked with Excel to create charts.

Metadata country of research organization

The geographical analysis of publications was the most challenging part of the meta-data analysis, due to wrongly appointed or missing data in the database. This false information had to be detected, selected, and substituted. We chose to limit our study to analyzing 30 years, 1990–2020. During this period, we could properly appoint geographical origins and see much less mistakes in the database, which we had to rule out. We analyzed origins by “City of Research Organization” and “Country of Research Organization,” using the corresponding author as our reference. A city was assigned to the country it was part of when the article was published. Modern city names were used. The Python package was used to check if the city or country name was in English language. If not, German city and country names were translated into the English language, after separation from the associated author and the research organization (https://www.deepl.com/de/blog/announcing-python-client-library-for-deepl-api, last accessed June 27th, 2022). Geopy is a Python package, which contains a database listing all cities and countries in English language. This database was used to unify the names of cities and countries. In addition, the algorithm can detect spelling mistakes in the names and correct these automatically (https://geopy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/, last accessed June 27th, 2022). If city or country names were missing or showed significant deviation, the correct translation of a name was researched manually (https://www.springer.com/journal/210, last accessed May 30th, 2022). Analyses focusing on continents, countries, and cities of origin were made. Trends were visualized over time as well as rising publication origins. Publication hotspots in Germany were identified and listed.

Results and discussion

Editorial analysis

Compared to 2019, the number of submissions increased by 36% in 2020. In 2021, the number of submissions then decreased by 23%. The substantial increase in articles submitted in 2020 could be an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, with fewer new projects being initiated in laboratories and more time to publish earlier collected data (Gao et al. 2021). In 2021, the stock of still unpublished data was used up, resulting in decreased submission numbers. From 2007 to 2021, the number of downloads increased by 3.5-fold. In March 2020, marking the first COVID-19-pandemic lockdown in many countries, downloads increased by almost 40%, when compared with February 2020. While comparing monthly downloads over the years, we found May to be the most active month (spring high). May is followed by October and November (fall high). August and September are the months with the lowest number of downloads (summer low), which leads us to conclude that in contrast to general assumption, scientists are not working year-round with the same intensity but take time off during summer.

The journal impact factor is a factor, which is calculated and published by the company Clarivate (https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/essays/impact-factor/, last accessed June 7th, 2022). It was developed to represent frequently cited papers and compare journals by their citations. Although the impact factor has been broadly criticized an unsuitable bibliometric tool to asses research quality and scientific contributions of individual scientists (see, e.g., https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28447650/, last accessed August 4th, 2022), nonetheless, it is broadly used as parameter in the scientific world, determining a journal’s “success” and standing. Authors still try to publish in journals with the highest impact factor possible, because they seemingly have a better reputation and a higher standing, potentially having better chances in job offers (Couch 2020). The impact factor of Naunyn-Schmiedebergs’ Archives of Pharmacology showed some ups and downs over the years and reached a peak of 3.195 in 2021 (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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Journal impact factor

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Journals publishing exclusively reviews or many reviews tend to have a higher impact factor than journals focusing on original articles (see Clarivate database). Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology clearly belongs into the second category (see discussion below). A recent analysis showed that the number of authors from Germany dropped substantially over the past two decades (Zehetbauer et al. 2022). The major reason for this drop is probably a cultural change in Germany taking place in the late 1990s, placing strong emphasis on a high impact factor for securing tenured academic positions and grant support (Zehetbauer et al. 2022). In line with this trend, not only the number of authors from Germany dropped over the past decades but also the number of submissions from Germany (see discussion below). Thus, one may be tempted to conclude that for many pharmacologists in Germany, the impact factor of Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology is “too low” to stimulate high-quality submissions. In contrast to this preconceived opinion, papers published by German pharmacologists in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology may receive high international visibility as evidenced by the high number of citations of the top-100 papers of this journal (see discussion below and Table 1).

Table 1 100 most-cited articles in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology
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As submissions to the journal steadily increased in the past years, so did the workload of the editorial board. The workload tripled from 2012 to 2020. However, the time until first decision decreased by 30% when comparing 2012 and 2021. Thus, the editorial board became more efficient. The fastest first decisions were recorded in 2021. It is possible that lockdowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic pushed editors and referees into the home office and gave them more time to edit and review, respectively, papers. Similar developments have also been noted for other journals (Palayew et al. 2020).

In recent years, in addition to downloads, the presence in social media has become another parameter for assessing the relevance of a journal. We analyzed the Altmetrics score, which is a parameter representing an article’s attention by evaluating different sources, such as for example Tweets, blogs, and videos (https://www.altmetric.com/about-altmetrics/what-are-altmetrics/, last accessed June 9th, 2022). We analyzed the social impact for the years 2012–2021, viewing the total number of mentions. An exponential increase could be seen throughout the time span of ten years (Fig. 2). Whereas only nine mentions were recorded for the year 2012, there were 706 mentions in 2020 and 1720 mentions made in 2021. Especially a significant increase in tweets about the journal could be shown in 2021. This is most likely due to the efforts of the journal to fight the paper mills (Seifert 2021).

Fig. 2
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Social impact: total number of mentions (data available starting 2012)

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In addition, Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology is a journal which not only publishes positive results but encourages authors to publish solid “negative” results (Seifert 2016). Therefore, authors can publish “negative” data on controversial issues in the journal which are then discussed in social media.

Analysis of the top contributors to the journal

We investigated the journal’s top-15 contributing authors from 1947 to 2020 (Fig. 3). All these authors published more than 40 papers in the journal. Klaus Starke (Freiburg) is leading the top-15 group with more than 120 articles, followed by Manfred Göthert (Bonn) with more than 100 publications in the journal. Starke mostly published on the adrenergic system, whereas Göthert focused on the serotonergic system (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, last accessed June 9th, 2022). Remarkably, these two top contributors published more than 30% of all their research papers in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology and held chair positions of large influential academic pharmacology departments. These two scientists had a major impact on the major research topics of the journal for decades and the contribution of cities to the journal (see discussion below). Starke and Göthert also provided service to the journal as editors (Starke 1998; Bönisch et al. 2021).

Fig. 3
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Top-15 contributors to the journal

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Starke and Göthert are followed, with a clear margin, by a group of pharmacologists working in related fields (e.g., in alphabetical order, Bönisch, Kaumann, Michel, Philippu, Schlicker, Schümann, Seifert, Trendelenburg). Other fields of pharmacology such as cardiovascular pharmacology (Kuschinsky), pharmacokinetics (Kiese), bacterial toxins (Habermann), substance P (Lembeck), and transport (Rummel) are covered as well (Philippu, 2004–2021).

Analysis of 100 most-cited articles

We analyzed the 100 most-cited articles published in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology using the Clarivate database. The database covers papers from 1947 onwards. We analyzed papers from 1947 to 2020. Table 1 presents the 100 most-cited articles. The number of citations for the highest cited publication is 1157. We noted that the most represented document types were original articles (83%). Review articles accounted for just 11% of the top papers, supporting the view that Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology is a classic original research journal (see discussion above). Few proceeding papers, notes, and editorial material are among the top-100 papers (Fig. S1).

When analyzing the publication years, we noticed that most of the most-cited articles were published between 1977 and 1979 (Fig. 4), i.e., shortly after English was introduced as official language (Starke 1998; see discussion below). These findings indicate that the switch to English greatly broadened international reception of research at that time. Only two papers (ranks 9 and 87) are in German language. The most recent top-100 paper is from the year 2009. Thus, the late 1970s were a particularly successful period for the journal. Back then, the impact factor did not play a role in assessing the perceived quality of a journal.

Fig. 4
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100 most-cited articles: articles per year

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Furthermore, we investigated the 100 most-cited articles for their geographical origin focusing on country and city of origin. Germany is the leading country with 36 papers, followed by Sweden (15), the USA (11), and Switzerland (10) (Fig. 5). All the Swiss papers came from Basel, making it the leading city in terms of contributing highly cited papers to Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology (Fig. S2). Basel is ranked before Freiburg, Gothenburg, and Essen, Graz, Stockholm, Bonn, Wurzburg, Amsterdam, and Cambridge. Most notably, the Basel papers originated in the pharmaceutical industry, and not in academia. This is a unique situation in the sense that pharmaceutical industry, in a certain period of history, made substantial contributions to basic pharmacology and published the results in an academic journal. For the first three highest ranked cities, the adrenergic and serotonergic system constituted the major research topics.

Fig. 5
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100 most-cited articles: countries

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We assigned the titles of the 100 most-cited papers to chapters of the textbook “Basic Knowledge of Pharmacology” (Seifert 2019) which is broadly used in pharmacology classes (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-18899-3; last accessed August 4th 2022). “Cholinergic and Adrenergic System” was the most common topic (24%), followed by serotonergic system (22%). Neurotransmitter papers (including histaminergic, dopaminergic purinergic, and peptidergic system) amounted to > 50% of the most highly cited papers (Fig. 6). Papers assigned to “Introduction and Pharmacodynamics” contributed to > 10% to the highly cited papers. Thus, from the perspective of the most-cited papers, Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology can be viewed as neurotransmitter and pharmacodynamics journal.

Fig. 6
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100 most-cited articles: topics by chapters of “Basic Knowledge of Pharmacology”

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When looking at times cited, one article significantly stands out, having almost 1200 citations (Table 1 and Fig. S3). This paper is entitled “Substance-P as neurogenic mediator of antidromic vasodilation and neurogenic plasma extravasation.” It was published by F. Lembeck and P. Holzer in 1979 and is an original article. It was submitted from the University of Graz in Austria. Since 2013, 12 accesses to the article could be registered in Clarivate. This clearly shows that even very old original research is still relevant and being accessed more than 30–40 years after publication. The contribution of such citation classics is, however, not captured in the popular and predominant impact factor that covers only the past 2 years but not the long-term impact of research.

Analysis of zero-cited articles

We also regarded zero-cited articles into our analysis, trying to determine trends making an article less “successful” or at least less requested. We included articles that listed zero citations from 2015 to 2022, as of April 2022. A total of 165 publications could be registered with zero citations, 113 of those being “original articles” and 11 “review articles “Retractions,” “corrections,” “editorial material,” and “expression of concern” are also included as types of articles (Fig. S4). Overall, this pattern is similar to the distribution of paper types found for the most-cited articles (Fig. S6). Most importantly, even review articles are well represented in the zero-cited category. This came as a surprise as general dogma holds that review articles get more cited than original articles. Thus, at least for Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology, review articles may be less important for international recognition than is intuitively assumed.

Most zero-cited articles came from Germany (17), followed by Brazil (16), China (13), and Iran (13) (Fig. 7). These data fit well to the countries of origin of current papers in the journal with China, Egypt, Brazil, and Iran leading the field (see discussion below). Thus, there is no bias in citation of papers from China, Egypt, Brazil, and Iran. Rather, the opposite is true with papers from Germany being not cited over proportionally. If a paper is deemed to be relevant, it will be cited, regardless of origin.

Fig. 7
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Zero-cited articles: countries

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Topics of zero-cited papers were assigned to chapters of “Basic Knowledge of Pharmacology” (Seifert 2019). “Drugs for the Treatment of Malignant Tumor Diseases” (24), “Immunopharmacology” (16) and “Pharmacodynamics” (25) were among the most common topics (Fig. S5), fitting quite well to the pattern of contemporary research topics (see discussion below). Papers on pharmacodynamics were overrepresented among the zero-cited papers. Perhaps, currently, Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology is perceived more as a disease-oriented journal than a basic molecular pharmacology journal.

Analysis of meta-data

We studied the meta-data of Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology in different dimensions to present a long-term analysis of the journal. Due to multiple unforeseen obstacles, such as wrongly appointed or missing data, we had to limit our analyses to different times for each parameter. Thus, we focused on the years 1947–1976 for the publication language analysis, on the years 1990–2020 for the geographical analysis, and on the years 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 for the analysis of research topics.

After World War II, publications in the journal started again in 1947 with a sharp peak in 1949 (Fig. 8 and Fig. S6). This peak reflects publication of research that was performed during the war but could not be published because of the disruption of civil infrastructure and communication. At that time, virtually, all papers were published in German language. In the following 10 years, few papers were published in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology. This reflects the fact that badly destroyed research institutes had to be rebuilt and new research projects had to be started from scratch (Philippu, 2004–2021). From 1959 to 1966, Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology published up to 210 papers per year, virtually all in German and reflecting recovery of pharmacological research in Germany after World War II. But in 1968, a situation like in 1950 emerged, and only very few papers were published in the following 2 years. This is probably due to the fact that at this time, pharmacologists from Germany wished to regain international recognition after World War II and started to publish in journals publishing in English language (Philippu 2004–2021). This situation, bringing the journal close to the brink of disappearance (Starke 1998), forced the editors Fred Lembeck and Ullrich Trendelenburg to abandon German language and switch to English language. Part of the decision was to rename the journal to Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology, the name being valid until today. This decision turned out to very prudent. In the year 1972, publication numbers of the journal had recovered and reached an ever high of more than 400 papers per year in 1974 and 1975. Thus, the transition from German to English language was forced by existential crisis, implemented abruptly and successful. Figure 8 also highlights the huge damage Germany had inflicted itself on pharmacological research from 1933 to 1945. It took more than 25 years after the war to rebuild international recognition of German pharmacology. The results of the research were then published in English.

Fig. 8
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Meta-data: publication languages (1947–1976)

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We used the years 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 for a thematical study of the journal’s publications throughout the decades. Each year is set to represent a decade. For a unified approach, we assigned a color to each chapter of “Basic Knowledge of Pharmacology” (Seifert 2019) (Figs. S7, S8, S9, S10, S11, and S12). As done before, additional categories were added, namely “Purinergic System,” “Editorial Analysis,” “Substance P,” and “Drugs for Treatment of Parasites´ Infections.” In 1970, the most represented chapter was “Introduction and Pharmacodynamics” (Fig. 9; Fig. S7); in 2020, it was “Drugs for the Treatment of Malignant Tumor Diseases” (Fig. S12). “Immunopharmacology” also rose to become the second most represented category in 2020. The contribution of neurotransmitter pharmacology to Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology declined substantially over the decades, a major reason being that top contributors to the field retired or even passed away (Bönisch et al. 2021). The importance of Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology as a general mechanistic journal dedicated to molecular mechanisms of drug action also declined over the decades (“Introduction and Pharmacodynamics”).

Fig. 9
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Meta-data: development of most used topics (1970–2020)

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The yearly share of our additionally added categories shows differences, with not every category always being represented (Figs. S7, S8, S9, S10, S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, and S17). Significantly “Purinergic System” stands out, being represented by 10 articles in 1990 and by 17 articles in 2000 (Figs. S9 and S10). 2020 is the only year, where the category “Drugs for Treatment of Viral Infections” was assigned (Fig. S12). Five articles can be assigned to this topic in 2020, all discussing COVID-19. This is the response to the pandemic, showing the timeliness of the journal and its constant development in presenting topics of high relevance. The relevance of the topic can also be seen by the fact that a COVID-19 paper was the most often downloaded and cited paper in 2020 (Rizzo 2020; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00210-020-01902-5; last accessed August 4th, 2022).

The number of textbook chapters represented in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology steadily increased over the past 50 years. While 17 categories were represented in 1970, we recorded 27 categories in 2010 and 30 categories in 2020 (Figs. S7, S11, and S12). Thus, the diversity of research topics in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology increased and the number of research fields covered in the journal almost doubled.

For a geographical overview, we first analyzed the number of publications by continent. Europe is the leading continent, being the origin to more than 2500 publications from 1990 to 2020 (Fig. 10). Europe is followed by Asia (1,110), North America (363), South America (200), Africa (145), and Australia (131). Thus, Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology is deeply rooted in Europe but can be viewed as a globally recognized journal if all other continents are added up.

Fig. 10
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Meta-data: publications by continent (1990–2020)

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When analyzing the top-20 contributing countries, ten European countries can be named; these countries being Germany, Italy, the UK, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Austria, and Switzerland. Combined, these countries make up close to 90% of total European publications (Fig. S13). The European lead is mainly due to German publications, as Germany is the country with the most publications (1163). Germany is followed by non-European countries, i.e., Japan and the USA. China, Brazil, Australia, Egypt, India, Taiwan, and Canada complete the top 20. Historically, Japan and Germany always had close research connections, and this also applies to pharmacology (Philippu, 2004–2021; Hattori et al. 2022).

Interestingly, when viewing publications over time, dramatic differences in publication numbers become evident. Despite Germany being the leading country from 1990 to 2016, its numbers decreased from > 70 publications in 1995 to an all-time low of mere 14 published papers in 2016 (Fig. S14). In other words, within just 20 years, Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology lost about 80% of its historical paper contribution from Germany, although it is the official journal of the German Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology (https://www.springer.com/journal/210/; last accessed August 4th, 2022). These numbers show that for German pharmacologists, ties to the official society journals are loose from the author perspective. However, in the Editorial Board where the Editor-in-Chief decides on editor appointment, representation of German Pharmacologists is still very substantial, i.e., 80% of all editors are members of the German Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology (https://www.springer.com/journal/210/editors; last accessed August 4th, 2022).

The analysis of the top-10 contributing countries in a time series shows that annual fluctuations affected each country (Fig. S14). Japan shows significant spikes in the years 2002 and 2007–2009.

Paradigmatic trends can be seen when viewing Egypt, Brazil, Iran, China, and Germany over time. These countries have been selected showing contrary developments and the global spread of pharmacological research (Fig. 11). In 2020, 66 papers were from China, with the first Chinese paper published in 1997. Thus, just within two decades, China has become the major contributor to Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology. In 2020, Egypt had 36 publications, followed by Iran with 32 papers and Brazil with 30 papers, all far surpassing Germany with just 17 publications. In 2020, Germany contributed less than 8% to all papers published in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology, an all-time low.

Fig. 11
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Meta-data: publications from Germany, Egypt, China, Brazil, and Iran (1990–2020)

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The major driving force for the dramatic decline of publications from Germany in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology is certainly the zeitgeist placing high emphasis on publications in high-impact factor journals for successful academic careers in pharmacology (Zehetbauer et al. 2022 and discussion above). It is less clear for which reasons Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology is so popular among pharmacologists from China, Egypt, Iran, and Brazil. No systematic data are available. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the quality and fairness of the peer review process as well as the quality of the editorial board play a major role in the popularity of the journal in some countries.

Analyzing the top-20 contributing cities, Freiburg and Bonn are leading with a clear margin to Mainz (Fig. S15). The high numbers for Freiburg are due to Klaus Starke, and the high numbers of Bonn are due to Manfred Göthert. Basel (Switzerland) is fourth. Tokyo, Taipei, Melbourne, Hanover, Heidelberg, and Essen complete the top 10. Tubingen, Frankfurt am Main, Stockholm, Porto, Berlin, Florence, Cairo, Amsterdam, Wurzburg, Paris, and Cambridge are the following most publishing cities, making the top-20 count complete. Thus, 50% of top-20 cities are from Germany, and the remainder of the cities is from other European countries, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Thus, Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology has a broad international representation. The lack of representation of the USA in the top-20 contributing cities is probably since there are multiple cities in the USA contributing to the journal and not, in contrast to other countries, a dominating city (e.g., Basel (Switzerland); Tokyo (Japan); Taipeh (Taiwan)).

The German cities with the most substantial contribution to Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology are located in the West and South-West parts of Germany (Fig. 12). This reflects the fact that in this part of Germany (the old Federal Republic of Germany, FRG, West-Germany), after World War II, pharmacological institutes were rebuild generously and could readily publish in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology (Starke 1998). In contrast, in the Eastern part of Germany (the earlier German Democratic Republic, GDR, East-Germany), rebuilding of pharmacological institutes was much slower, and access to Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology was very limited (Starke, 1998; Philippu 2004–2021). Although Fig. 12 analyzes the publication record in the 30 years after the reunification of Germany, nonetheless, the delay in rebuilding hotspots in pharmacological research in the East is very evident. The only hotspot in the East is Berlin, the reasons for its prominence being the fact that the western part of Berlin benefited from financial support from the FRG during the German division and that the city hosts multiple research institutions with pharmacological institutes (Philippu 2004–2021). Other notable hotspots are Hanover (North-Central); Essen (West) and Regensburg (South-East). Universities in these cities were newly founded in the 1960s–1970s with the expansion of higher education for broad segments of the German population. These new pharmacological institutes rapidly adopted Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology as a venue for publication. Thus, the popularity of Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology as a publication outlet is not limited to universities with a long history of pharmacology departments such as Freiburg, Bonn, and Mainz. These data show that a traditional journal can be very attractive for modern institutions.

Fig. 12
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Geographical map of germany; hotspot publication cities (1990–2020)

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Conclusions and future perspectives

In 2023, Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology is celebrating its 150th anniversary, and the journal is in an excellent condition, despite having encountered multiple serious challenges such as the self-inflicted annihilation of German pharmacology in World War II, the necessity to switch from German to English language in the 1970s, the retirement of leading contributors to the journal in the 2000s, the dramatic decline in papers from Germany during the past 25 years, and the paper mill crisis in 2020 (Seifert 2021; Sabel and Seifert 2021; van der Heyden 2021).

This paper shows how the journal has successfully adapted and reacted to these challenges and evolved from a German neurotransmitter journal into an international pharmacological journal with authors from all continents and representing a broad spectrum of topics with an emphasis on tumor pharmacology and immunopharmacology. The paper also shows how eminent scientists have shaped the journal in terms of research topics and geographical location. The journal has been strongly influenced by German history, specifically World War II and the division of the country following the war. Effects of these periods, going back decades, are still visible.

Writing and publishing scientific papers are cultural acts that are strongly influenced financial and career reward systems. The strong impact of such overwhelming zeitgeist attitudes is most evident with the dramatic decrease of publications from Germany in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology over the past 25 years. This unfortunate development could have brought the journal, again, to the brink of extinction, but particularly, during the past 5–10 years, submissions from other countries compensated for the loss in submissions from Germany. This resulted in large shifts in the topics covered by Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology. We have no evidence that research from countries with emerging pharmacological research such as China, Egypt, Iran, and Brazil is undercited. Traditionally, Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology has been predominantly an original research paper journal. In this context, it is interesting to note that even reviews may go uncited, suggesting that increasing the number of reviews in a journal may not automatically result in higher citation rates and a higher impact factor.

This paper also provides interesting insights into the life of scientists, i.e., in which month they read scientific papers and how they coped with the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper documents the successful transition of the journal from a print journal to an online journal and the exponentially progressing representation of the journal in social media. This paper provides evidence for the notion that even very old research papers are cited in current times. Finally, the paper points to societal issues, i.e., the non-representation of women among the top-contributing authors.

What will be the future development of the journal? Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology is known for its fair and constructive review process (Starke 1998; Seifert 2016). The journal has a “science first” policy, allowing flexible publication formats and no incentives to artificially increase its impact factor. Based on the diversification of research topics that took place over the past decades, the journal will continue to welcome publications from every field of pharmacology, even “small” fields that may yield only few citations. The present paper has shown that it may take decades to assess the true scientific value of a paper.

We anticipate that the journal will strengthen its position in the fields of tumor pharmacology and immunopharmacology. Based on the diverse research topics presented in the journal and a broad global authorship, we predict a bright future for the journal. When Starke wrote his review in 1998, he predicted that the solid submission basis from Germany would be an asset to the journal. This turned out not to be the case, but nonetheless, the journal survived.

Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology, although being a traditional pharmacology journal, will be up to date, e.g., as with the implementation of a mechanistic drug class nomenclature (Seifert and Schirmer 2021; Seifert and Alexander 2022). The journal will also welcome high-quality studies on chemically defined natural compounds (Merfort et al. 2017) and biologically well-defined probiotics (Neumann and Seifert 2021). However, the journal will not publish purely computational studies without pharmacological experiments (https://www.springer.com/journal/210/submission-guidelines?IFA#Instructions%20for%20Authors_Important%20Submission%20Policy, last accessed August 4th, 2022) and not pharmacological studies dealing only with crude biological extracts (Merfort et al. 2017). Lastly, the journal is aware of its societal and historical responsibility and will welcome papers connecting pharmacology and society (Zehetbauer et al. 2022; Ellerbeck and Seifert 2022) or pharmacology and history (Löffelholz 2011; Pohar and Hansson 2021; Philippu et al. 2022). With regret, we noted that pharmacodynamics topics are much less prominently presented in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology than they used to be, but this may also be a result of zeitgeist placing emphasis on applied disease-oriented research which is strongly represented in the journal. Nonetheless, pharmacodynamics papers are explicitly welcome.

Taken together, we hope that this article, putting together some numerical parameters of Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology, revealed some new insights into the history, inner workings, and scientific development of the journal and could convince the reader to consider the journal for the next research paper and/or review.