The Eighth Working Meeting of Serial Periodicals of People's Medical Publishing House and the Meeting of the Ninth Editorial Board of Chinese Journal for Clinicians and the Second Editorial Board of Global Health Journal were successfully convened

On March 15, 2019, in order to study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech on deepening reform and cultivating world-class scientific and technological journals, the eighth working meeting of serial periodicals of People’s Medical Publishing House (PMPH) and the meeting of the ninth editorial board of Chinese Journal for Clinicians and the second editorial board of Global Health Journal were held in Beijing, sponsored by PMPH, supported by the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, in a bid to implement the project that we should make bold steps to build the first-class journals at home and strive to develop the world leading journals abroad. There were more than 300 people attending the meeting, as follows: officers from the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China; academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, the editors-in-chief, the executive editors-in-chief, the deputy editors-in-chief, editorial board members and the directors of the editorial department of serial periodicals of PMPH, as well as other leadership, editors and reporters from PMPH.

A number of participants made speech during the meeting, as follows: Dr. Wang Chen (editor-in-chief of Chinese Journal for Clinicians, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the president of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College), Ms. Song Shuli (director of the Publicity Department of National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China), Mr. Li Jun (director of Media Regulatory Bureau of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, vice president of China Periodicals Association), Mr. Wang Zhicheng (the inspector and deputy director of Publication Bureau of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee), Mr. Hao Yang (chairman of the board and secretary of the CPC Committee of PMPH), Dr. Chen Xiaoping (editor-in-chief of Chinese Journal of Medicine, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and director of Department of Surgery of Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science & Technology), Dr. Zhang Yingze (executive editor-in-chief of Chinese Journal for Clinicians, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the president of the Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University), Dr. Dong Jiahong (editor-in-chief of Electronic Journal of Liver Tumor, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, and executive president of Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital), Professor Lee Liming (editor-in-chief of Global Health Journal, and former secretary of CPC Committee of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College), Dr. Ma Zheng (professor, and deputy director of Scientific Measurement and Evaluation Center of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China), Prof. Dr. Alfred O. Mueck (guest editorial board member of Chinese Journal for Clinicians, a gynaecologist of University Hospital Tübingen in Germany), and Prof. Jane Thomason (foreign editorial board member of Global Health Journal, and senior adviser of ABT Associates in Australia). The meeting was hosted by Du Xian, executive editor-in-general of PMPH.

The leaders of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, the academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Academy of Engineering, fully affirmed the achievements in the work of serial periodicals of PMPH, and highly appraised the meeting as efficient, practical and innovative. Besides, they put forward constructive suggestions on construction of the quality, content, convergence media and talents of PMPH, and hope that as a strong and big publishing house, PMPH should take full use of its strength, such as its media structure of books-journals-digital products publishing and the interactive cross-media publishing to enhance the development, implement intensive management and grow its core competitiveness. Ultimately, we need to make a more prominent contribution to the implementation of Healthy China Strategy proposed at the Nineteenth CPC National Congress, with the purpose of “serving the people with the high-quality products”, under the guidance of “holding the banner high up, bringing minds together, cultivating young talents, enriching the culture and displaying good example”!

In the speech, Hao Yang, chairman of the board and secretary of the CPC Committee of PMPH, gave an introduction of the serial periodicals development of PMPH, and raised seven points for the development of periodicals: (1) adherence to the correct political direction and publication orientation, to steadily advance the project of building stronger publishing house with better journals; (2) to keep pace with the times and be courageous in innovation; (3) taking quality as life, to create high-quality periodicals; (4) focused on capacity-building, to foster a team of first-class talents; (5) exploring diversified operation mode, to realize double benefits; (6) going digital to achieve deep integrated development; (7) promoting the journal strategy of "Go Global" for periodicals to increase our international presence.

Mr. Du Xian, executive editor-in-general, announced the establishment of the Ninth Editorial Board of Chinese Journal for Clinicians, the establishment of the second Editorial Board of Global Health Journal, and invited the leaders and the academicians to issue the Letter of Appointment to editors-in-chief, executive editors-in-chief, deputy editors-in-chief and representatives of editorial board members of the two editorial boards. 

Academic communications were held at the meeting. Dr. Ma Zheng, deputy director of Scientific Measurement and Evaluation Center of Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, made an analysis report on the journal development at home and abroad, and gave an introduction of journal evaluation index system, the filing process of core journals as well as how to start a quality journal; Prof. Huo Yong, editor-in-chief of Chinese Journal of the Frontiers of Medical Science (Electronic Version) and the director of cardiovascular department of Peking University First Hospital, made a report on the exploration of integrated development path of publishing house on a basis of Chinese Journal of the Frontiers of Medical Science (Electronic Version); Mr. Fan Cunbin, senior editor and director of Editorial Department of PMPH, made a summary report on the PMPH serial periodicals work.

In the afternoon, the discussions in the three parallel sessions were conducted in a heated, complete and practical manner. Based on the spirit of speech in the morning, focused on the key issues of the publication of medical journals, the editors-in-chief, executive editors-in-chief, deputy editors-in-chief, editorial board members and editors of the relevant journals made in-depth discussion and extensive communication on various topics, such as the integrated innovative development, seeking high quality contributions and enhancing journal's quality. The experts at the meeting spoke freely, offered a variety of suggestions and eventually reached a consensus on the journal development of content construction, column innovation, management, operation and public service with "special issues, special column, special topics, key points, hot spots, difficulties, consensus, standard, guidance, training, popular science and poverty alleviation".

This is an important meeting with fruitful results, which convened in response to the national appeal to build world-class sci-tech periodicals under the new situation. It would be of strategic significance to build PMPH a world-class publishing house with the field's leading journals so as to stand tall in the numerous world publishing houses. The achievements over the years in serial periodicals of PMPH were well affirmed by the leaders and experts at the meeting. Hopefully we could carry out the plan to improve the quality of journals by seeking expert input, introducing stronger quality controls and better management and operating measures, cooperating with international partners and going digital, by means of such of platform of journal academic exchanges "Serial Periodical Working Meeting of PMPH". With the above measures, we could establish world class publishing house and journals, so as to make greater contribution to develop PMPH towards specialization, marketization, collectivization, digitization, diversification and internationalization.