A century ago, Brazil faced several epidemics. Our researchers produced pioneering studies in the world, discovering diseases, identifying vectors, describing pathological agents. However, there was a lack of Brazilian and Latin American vehicles with a high standard of printing and regularity where they could publish the generated knowledge. It was in this context that the magazine Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz was born, edited since 1909 by the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC/Fiocruz). Upon completing 100 years, the oldest scientific journal in Latin America has one of the greatest impact factors in the country in the biomedical area and persists in its pioneering spirit, betting on modernization and internationalization to remain among the most important publications in the world in the area, without opening hand of free access to its content.
The Memoirs complete the centenary savoring what is perhaps the best moment in its history. The publication experiences solid and constant growth in the number of articles submitted - there were 607 in 2008 alone - and in its influence. It was recognized by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) as the scientific journal with the highest impact factor in Latin America in 2006 and second largest in 2007🇧🇷 The index is a ratio between the number of citations to articles in a publication in a given year, based on the journals indexed by the ISI, and the number of works published by the journal in the two previous years.
According to the publication's editor, Ricardo Lourenço de Oliveira, the secret to the current success of Memórias was the combination of an aggressive editorial policy with a process of continuous updating. “We try to keep the journal in line with the most modern trends in publications in the area, raising the bar for published articles and encouraging greater participation by leading researchers from Brazil and abroad”, explains Lourenço. “All this without losing, of course, the original characteristics of the journal and its commitment to the dissemination of biomedical research, especially in the area of tropical medicine.”
The magazine suffered the consequences of the period of political repression and had its circulation suspended for six years. In a way, the magazine was yet another victim of the episode known as the Manguinhos Massacre, in the 70s, when the most prominent researchers in their fields at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz were impeached by the military government and prevented from carrying out teaching activities. and search. Also suffering from a lack of resources, the publication was only resumed in 1980, when it resumed periodicity and incorporated the modernizations that would take it back to its place as one of the most important scientific journals in Latin America.
The modernization process was soon leveraged. “After the interruption in circulation, the magazine was resumed and, still in the 1980s, it began to be indexed internationally”, says the editor. “In the following decade, the publication was digitized, making its content available for free on the internet, and began to publish articles essentially in English, decisive steps to make it more accessible to researchers from all over the world and to increase its relevance in the world. scientific way.”
The 2000s brought a series of novelties, which made it possible to increase the magazine's impact factor. One of the most important was the adoption of an online article submission process, a fundamental decision for the magazine's internationalization. “From the beginning of 2007, all works began to be submitted for publication via the internet, which increased the agility and the degree of transparency of the process, especially for authors from outside Brazil”, celebrates Lourenço.
Last year, the magazine began to make its centenary collection available online, for free download. “This facilitated access to all the articles ever published in Memórias, some of them true landmarks for science”, says the editor. “Our articles also began to count on with the DOI, an international system for identifying scientific articles, which guarantees the existence and publication of the article in question, which gives even more seriousness and reliability to the journal.”
All these technological innovations are part of the editorial policy gradually adopted in recent decades. With the aim of increasing the quality and originality of published articles, today the journal has five associate editors, all researchers from the IOC, and an Editorial Board made up of 20 members of the IOC and other Brazilian and foreign institutions. The associate editors carry out a pre-evaluation of the works, before they are sent to ad-hoc consultants, responsible for suggesting changes in the material. “We have sought to increasingly qualify the members of the Board and our consultants, inviting distinguished members of the international scientific community, with recent high-quality production on the topics in question”, reveals the editor. Today, 60% of the directors and most of the collaborators are foreign researchers, exponents in their areas of study.
The journal's longevity is an important milestone for Brazilian science itself, according to the editor. “In Brazil there are still few centuries-old institutions and this brand represents the consolidation, in the country, of scientific communication committed to the development of science and the democratization of knowledge”, he believes.
The many achievements of the centenary, however, do not hide the new challenges that lie ahead for the future of Memórias and other similar national publications. “Brazil carries out high-quality research in the biomedical area, but our journals still don't have a compatible impact factor. The challenge for Brazilian scientific journals is to raise this index”, argues Lourenço. “For this, it is necessary to convince national and foreign authors to publish in Brazilian journals, which undoubtedly involves internationalization, modernization and adoption of all possible international indexes in our journals.”
Founded by Oswaldo Cruz, who was also the first to assume the functions of editor of the magazine, Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz completes 100 years with a trajectory of great relevance for Brazilian and world research. “Over the last century, the contributions of studies published in the journal to areas such as parasitology, microbiology and tropical medicine have been countless”, highlights the journal's editor. “Much of what is known today about diseases such as dengue, yellow fever, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS is somehow registered in the Memories.”
Before the journal was created, researchers such as Oswaldo Cruz himself were already producing important studies on various diseases. These articles were published, at the time, in newspapers with daily circulation or in periodicals that even had a scientific vocation, but they were published as newspapers, on low-quality paper, tabloid format and with little possibility of disseminating color figures. Oswaldo Cruz's main motivation when conceiving the Memórias was to create a high-level journal to house and disseminate the enormous amount of scientific knowledge that was being generated in Brazil, especially within the Oswaldo Cruz Institute itself. The first volumes were bilingual publications, in Portuguese and, usually, German, although some were translated into English or French. Today, in an effort for its internationalization, Memórias publishes all its content in English, with grammar and vocabulary reviewed by specialists, following the same procedure adopted by other international journals.
In addition to its important scientific contributions, the journal is part of the memory of Brazilian science. “Historical and pioneering articles by several researchers such as Carlos Chagas, Adolpho Lutz, Gaspar Vianna and Emmanuel Dias, for example, were published on its pages, which are still a reference for research around the world”, recalls the editor. “Many of the most important scientific illustrations in the history of Brazilian science are also part of our collection, as Oswaldo Cruz hired great illustrators from the early XNUMXth century to work in partnership with the Institute's researchers, always with the aim of producing a publication of great quality."
* Reporting: Marcelo Garcia
A century ago, Brazil faced several epidemics. Our researchers produced pioneering studies in the world, discovering diseases, identifying vectors, describing pathological agents. However, there was a lack of Brazilian and Latin American vehicles with a high standard of printing and regularity where they could publish the generated knowledge. It was in this context that the magazine Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz was born, edited since 1909 by the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC/Fiocruz). Upon completing 100 years, the oldest scientific journal in Latin America has one of the greatest impact factors in the country in the biomedical area and persists in its pioneering spirit, betting on modernization and internationalization to remain among the most important publications in the world in the area, without opening hand of free access to its content.
The Memoirs complete the centenary savoring what is perhaps the best moment in its history. The publication experiences solid and constant growth in the number of articles submitted - there were 607 in 2008 alone - and in its influence. It was recognized by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) as the scientific journal with the highest impact factor in Latin America in 2006 and second largest in 2007🇧🇷 The index is a ratio between the number of citations to articles in a publication in a given year, based on the journals indexed by the ISI, and the number of works published by the journal in the two previous years.
According to the publication's editor, Ricardo Lourenço de Oliveira, the secret to the current success of Memórias was the combination of an aggressive editorial policy with a process of continuous updating. “We try to keep the journal in line with the most modern trends in publications in the area, raising the bar for published articles and encouraging greater participation by leading researchers from Brazil and abroad”, explains Lourenço. “All this without losing, of course, the original characteristics of the journal and its commitment to the dissemination of biomedical research, especially in the area of tropical medicine.”
The magazine suffered the consequences of the period of political repression and had its circulation suspended for six years. In a way, the magazine was yet another victim of the episode known as the Manguinhos Massacre, in the 70s, when the most prominent researchers in their fields at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz were impeached by the military government and prevented from carrying out teaching activities. and search. Also suffering from a lack of resources, the publication was only resumed in 1980, when it resumed periodicity and incorporated the modernizations that would take it back to its place as one of the most important scientific journals in Latin America.
The modernization process was soon leveraged. “After the interruption in circulation, the magazine was resumed and, still in the 1980s, it began to be indexed internationally”, says the editor. “In the following decade, the publication was digitized, making its content available for free on the internet, and began to publish articles essentially in English, decisive steps to make it more accessible to researchers from all over the world and to increase its relevance in the world. scientific way.”
The 2000s brought a series of novelties, which made it possible to increase the magazine's impact factor. One of the most important was the adoption of an online article submission process, a fundamental decision for the magazine's internationalization. “From the beginning of 2007, all works began to be submitted for publication via the internet, which increased the agility and the degree of transparency of the process, especially for authors from outside Brazil”, celebrates Lourenço.
Last year, the magazine began to make its centenary collection available online, for free download. “This facilitated access to all the articles ever published in Memórias, some of them true landmarks for science”, says the editor. “Our articles also began to count on with the DOI, an international system for identifying scientific articles, which guarantees the existence and publication of the article in question, which gives even more seriousness and reliability to the journal.”
All these technological innovations are part of the editorial policy gradually adopted in recent decades. With the aim of increasing the quality and originality of published articles, today the journal has five associate editors, all researchers from the IOC, and an Editorial Board made up of 20 members of the IOC and other Brazilian and foreign institutions. The associate editors carry out a pre-evaluation of the works, before they are sent to ad-hoc consultants, responsible for suggesting changes in the material. “We have sought to increasingly qualify the members of the Board and our consultants, inviting distinguished members of the international scientific community, with recent high-quality production on the topics in question”, reveals the editor. Today, 60% of the directors and most of the collaborators are foreign researchers, exponents in their areas of study.
The journal's longevity is an important milestone for Brazilian science itself, according to the editor. “In Brazil there are still few centuries-old institutions and this brand represents the consolidation, in the country, of scientific communication committed to the development of science and the democratization of knowledge”, he believes.
The many achievements of the centenary, however, do not hide the new challenges that lie ahead for the future of Memórias and other similar national publications. “Brazil carries out high-quality research in the biomedical area, but our journals still don't have a compatible impact factor. The challenge for Brazilian scientific journals is to raise this index”, argues Lourenço. “For this, it is necessary to convince national and foreign authors to publish in Brazilian journals, which undoubtedly involves internationalization, modernization and adoption of all possible international indexes in our journals.”
Founded by Oswaldo Cruz, who was also the first to assume the functions of editor of the magazine, Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz completes 100 years with a trajectory of great relevance for Brazilian and world research. “Over the last century, the contributions of studies published in the journal to areas such as parasitology, microbiology and tropical medicine have been countless”, highlights the journal's editor. “Much of what is known today about diseases such as dengue, yellow fever, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS is somehow registered in the Memories.”
Before the journal was created, researchers such as Oswaldo Cruz himself were already producing important studies on various diseases. These articles were published, at the time, in newspapers with daily circulation or in periodicals that even had a scientific vocation, but they were published as newspapers, on low-quality paper, tabloid format and with little possibility of disseminating color figures. Oswaldo Cruz's main motivation when conceiving the Memórias was to create a high-level journal to house and disseminate the enormous amount of scientific knowledge that was being generated in Brazil, especially within the Oswaldo Cruz Institute itself. The first volumes were bilingual publications, in Portuguese and, usually, German, although some were translated into English or French. Today, in an effort for its internationalization, Memórias publishes all its content in English, with grammar and vocabulary reviewed by specialists, following the same procedure adopted by other international journals.
In addition to its important scientific contributions, the journal is part of the memory of Brazilian science. “Historical and pioneering articles by several researchers such as Carlos Chagas, Adolpho Lutz, Gaspar Vianna and Emmanuel Dias, for example, were published on its pages, which are still a reference for research around the world”, recalls the editor. “Many of the most important scientific illustrations in the history of Brazilian science are also part of our collection, as Oswaldo Cruz hired great illustrators from the early XNUMXth century to work in partnership with the Institute's researchers, always with the aim of producing a publication of great quality."
* Reporting: Marcelo Garcia
The non-profit reproduction of the text is allowed as long as the source is cited (Comunicação / Instituto Oswaldo Cruz)
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