A magazine that was created by Oswaldo Cruz, one of the pioneers of the Brazilian scientific trajectory, is undoubtedly born with something special. From the top of its 98 years, consolidated as the first scientific journal created in Latin America, the Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz has just received its highest distinction: it was recognized as the scientific journal with the greatest impact in Latin America in 2006 by the Journal of Citation Reports, based on the index calculated by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), the international body responsible for assessing the relevance of indexed scientific journals from around the world.

The magazine, which is edited by Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC) since 1909 and guarantees free access to its full content, obtained an impact factor of 1,208. This index is calculated by dividing the number of times that articles published in a given journal were cited in scientific papers in the last two years by the total number of articles published in the period. Thus, the ISI method allows, in part, to measure the relevance of the knowledge disseminated through each scientific journal. The impact factor obtained by Memórias is the highest achieved by a Brazilian journal since 2001, when the journal Computational and Applied Mathematics obtained an index of 1,5.

Last year, the impact index of Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz was 0,84, which gave it third place in the general ranking of Brazilian journals. According to the current editor of the magazine, the researcher of the IOC Ricardo Lourenço, what explains such a vertiginous advance in just one year is a careful selection process. “We annually receive an average of 300 works for analysis and publication. Since 2005, the then editor, researcher José Rodrigues Coura, and his associate editors have installed a pre-selection system for submitted manuscripts. Thus, the articles have been pre-analyzed by a team of associate editors and specialists, who screen them according to their scientific relevance and, above all, their originality. Then, the manuscripts are evaluated by two or even three expert referees”, says Lourenço.

Coura, who was at the head of Memórias for ten years, shows that the achievement is not mere chance. “Since 2004, there has been a geometric growth in the volume of queries to the magazine. This would certainly translate into an increase in the volume of citations,” she says. “This is an achievement that depended on the dedication of many people. In addition to the magazine's executive team, there are five associate editors and an editorial board with 21 members, in addition to a large group of consultants. ad-hoc”, adds Lourenço.

The secret to reaching the peak at the age of 98 may lie in the formula that seeks to balance the fine line between tradition and daring. Faithful to the proposal of disseminating new knowledge in the area of ​​tropical medicine since its foundation, Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz has kept up to date with the most contemporary trends in publications. “Proof of this was the magazine's international indexing in the 1980s, when researcher Eloi Garcia was editor”, Lourenço evaluates. “The creation of the magazine's website and the free availability of the content in the 1990s during the management of the editor Hooman Momen was the next step, culminating in the online article submission system implemented in May of this year, which streamlines the process from the beginning. submission of the article by the author until its effective publication, ensuring the dynamism and timeliness of the contents”, he concludes.