The Journal of Abdominal Wall Surgery (JAWS) is the official journal of the European Hernia Society (EHS)
JAWS was launched on Frontiers’ open-access platform in July 2021. The launch of the journal marks an important moment in the long history of the society which was founded in 1979 to promote: “abdominal wall surgery, the study of anatomical, physiological and therapeutic problems related to abdominal wall pathology”.
I had the immense honor and privilege of being appointed by the EHS board as editor-in-chief. At that time I wrote in my welcome message: “The Journal of Abdominal Wall Surgery (JAWS) was born from an ambitious project within the European Hernia Society whose central idea is to be an organ of scientific expression for all surgeons in the world interested in abdominal wall surgery. Abdominal wall surgery is probably one of the surgeries that a surgeon will perform the most during his professional life. Therefore, it is necessary to share and make visible the scientific production in this specific area of surgery. Sharing ideas, exchanging knowledge, promoting clinical and basic research in a context of equality, equity and diversity are the essential lines of JAWS. JAWS is open, come in and share”.
We are now entering the fourth year of the journal’s life and the difficulties that have arisen have been fixed with the determination and constant support of a solid and united EHS board and a JAWS editorial team with a clear idea of the objectives proposed from the first published article until the 100th that we are now celebrating. During this short period of time the work has been hard but now we have gone from being complete unknowns to being indexed in many of the key repositories including Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), PubMed, PMC and most recently Scopus. From 2025 the journal will receive a Scopus CiteScore and already has a CiteScore Tracker. In addition, following Indexation in DOAJ, JAWS received the DOAJ Seal which is awarded to journals that demonstrate best practice in open access publishing. We are facing important challenges in the near future such as access to WoS (Web of Science) , one of the most trusted citation networks and the well-known “Impact Factor”.
However, our main objective is to be more than a number or a position in a list of journals. We are committed to quality and we count on all authors interested in abdominal wall surgery regardless of whether they are members of the EHS or not. All of them make JAWS possible.
I would like to congratulate and thank all the authors who have published so far in the journal and of course thank again the EHS board, the editorial team and to all those who in a direct or indirect way have helped the progress of the journal.
I end this short text by repeating the words I wrote in the welcome text of the journal three years ago:
“JAWS is open, come in and share”.
Manuel López Cano
JAWS Editor-in-Chief
