According to a decision made by the Board of the European Society of Human Genetics and approved by the General Assembly of the Society last June in Paris, the European Journal of Human Genetics becomes bimonthly starting in 1995. There will be no increase in subscription rates for ESHG members, and the cost for the two additional issues per year will be borne equally by the Society and the publisher.

In 1995 our journal will also appear in Current Contents, having been scrutinized for the past 2 years. During these first 2 years, a total of 62 manuscripts have been published, with an average acceptance rate of 42%. The increase in the number of issues to 6 during 1995 will further shorten publication time, which was good at 4 issues per year (7.5 months from receipt and 3.4 months from acceptance, as calculated from 5 issues: 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.1 and 2.2. Issue 1.1 has not been taken into account because the review process was managed directly by the Editor-in-Chief and not by the Editorial Department at the publishers).

Dividing papers into 6 broad categories, the distribution of papers is the following: 5.5% clinical and developmental, 5.5% cytogenetics, 26.5% mapping, 25% molecular, 29% population, 8.5% imprinting. There will soon be more reviews and topical reports, including news about the activities of the ESHG and reports on how medical genetics is organized in different European countries (starting with the smaller ones). In addition we would like to stress a feature of the EJHG which is not so common in other journals. We have a simple rule by which every referee receives an anonymous copy of the other referees’ comments as well as a copy of the final editorial decision. This rule, besides giving each referee some gratification for the work he/she has done anonymously for the journal, clearly represents an indicator which each referee can utilize to control the fairness of the decisions made. In more general terms this rule implies that the scientific community at large has direct control of the scientific standards of the journal and of its review procedures.

Finally, we believe that a general human genetics journal like the EJHG is needed, and that, in its own way, it will promote understanding among human geneticists in Europe and worldwide. We consider it a strength that the journal is owned by the ESHG, and that the editorial policies are entirely guided by the Editors and Advisory Board appointed by the Society.