A Message from the Editors

Welcome to the first edition of AP&T for 2023. Submissions to the journal spiked during the initial period of the COVID19 pandemic but have subsequently stabilised. From 1 January 2022 to 30 September 2022, we received 1344 submissions (excluding editorials and letters), and ultimately accepted 170 for publication. That gives us an acceptance rate of 12.6%, which is slightly higher than the preceding year. We do not like to disappoint authors who submit to AP&T but we try to be as objective as possible focusing on quality of submissions, and their likely relevance to the readership. We hope we are striking the correct balance but would be pleased to hear from you if you feel otherwise. Authors of some papers that are not accepted for AP&T are given the option of having their work forwarded to one of our affiliated Hindawi journals— namely GastroHep or the Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. We had some changes to our group of Associate Editors in 2022. Dr Nick Kennedy stepped down from his position as Associate Editor with responsibility for IBDrelated papers and was replaced by Dr Sree Subramanian. Professor Stephen Ryder ended his term as Associate Editor with responsibility for hepatology submissions and has been replaced by Professor Vincent Wong. Dr Mike Burkitt also finished his term as Reviews Editor in 2022 and will be replaced in 2023 by Dr Shailja Shah. We thank Nick, Stephen and Mike for all of their efforts on behalf of the journal and we look forward to working with Sree, Vincent and Shailja in 2023. Our 2year impact factor for 2022 increased from 8.171 to 9.524— a relative increase of 16.6%. This puts us in 14th place among 93 journals in our field. The 10 papers published in 2021 that were most highly cited in 2022 covered a wide range of topics but with a major focus on NAFLD/NASH and IBD.1– 10 Between1 October 2021 and 30 September 2022, there were 2,367,663 individual downloads. Among our 10 most frequently downloaded papers, topics covered included IBD, chronic abdominal pain, coeliac disease and cirrhosis.11– 20 We congratulate the authors of our most cited1– 10 and most downloaded11– 20 papers. We once again thank the Associate Editors, the International Editorial Advisory Board members and our large and diverse group of dedicated reviewers. Their contributions are key to the continued success of AP&T. To all of our previous and potential authors, we hope to continue to attract highquality research across a broad spectrum of digestive and liver issues. While we are obviously unable to accept many of the papers we receive, we promise you a rapid editorial decision and— for those that are sent for peer review— a scrupulously fair and transparent review process. Rohit Loomba