The journal was started in 1992 by the European Sleep Research Society. I was a founding member of the Society and had previously done a lot of editing for them. So somehow I was fingered to become the editor of this new journal. It was teamwork from the very beginning, however. I was able to work with or help recruit an excellent group of associate editors who are very talented in their own areas of sleep research. We all worked together as a team to get the journal to where it is today.

  Where would sleep researchers publish prior to 1992?

We would publish mostly in the journal Sleep, which is largely an American journal and concentrates very much on clinical research. Over here in Europe, we felt that there was still a great need for a more basic sciences journal in the area of sleep and that the European Sleep Research Society was in a good position to launch it. We also found very supportive publishers—Blackwell Science—and we were able to work very closely with them.

  Does the journal concentrate on basic science?

Yes. It is, say, two-thirds a journal of basic science in sleep research and about one-third clinical.

  Does it tend to have a European slant, compared with Sleep?

No, or at least I hope not. I hope that it is international. A lot of our papers come from North America, the US in particular. Perhaps initially it may have been more European, but now it is very much international. I think even people in North America do see that ours is a more basic-research type journal than it is clinical. And that’s why we tend to get quite a few papers from North America in the basic science area.

I think one factor is that we decided from the beginning that we would go for quality and hold that line regardless. I think we’ve lived up to that. Rather than go looking to expand the journal and perhaps dilute the quality of the articles, we’ve been able to maintain the high quality of papers. We’ve managed this even though in the early days we were very worried about whether we would be able to fill the journal with high-quality work. As a result, good researchers all over the world have increasingly recognized that this is a good journal, and we have had increasing numbers of good papers sent to us.

Another factor is that we can turn these articles around quickly, get them reviewed quickly. For instance, a good-quality paper, which is sent to us and requires some revision by the authors, can still get published within 10 months of us receiving the first draft. Once a paper is accepted for publication, we can get it into print within four months, and reduce this to two months for "fast-track" papers. That’s appealing to top-quality scientists. They like to see work get out quickly. I think high turnaround is a sign of a good journal.

  Once you launched the Journal of Sleep Research, did the journal’s evolution go as planned?

We knew we had competition from the journal Sleep, so we had to try and initially beat them at this turnaround business. I think we did, but now their turnaround time is pretty good, as well. But at first we the had advantage; we were more efficient, perhaps because we were new, and we had a good and enthusiastic team waiting to get the papers, turn them around quickly, and be able to tell authors quite quickly, in very detailed manner, how to improve the paper. If we rejected it, we still were conscientious in giving positive feedback. So even if someone’s paper was rejected, they would still feel that they benefited from sending it first to our journal. I think that generated quite a lot of good will.

I’m pleased. I wouldn’t say surprised. I had hoped it would go this way. I was quietly anticipating that it would, and I would have been disappointed had it not. In part, because we have taken risks. There were times, some years ago, when we were very short of good-quality papers and wondering what to do—should we lower our standards? And we decided not to. The journal got a bit thinner but we didn’t compromise quality. That was risky, but I think it paid off.

  Did the field of sleep research change in the past decade in such a way that would make for a wider audience?

Well, certainly there have been more and more clinical papers. In many ways sleep research has gone in a direction somewhat away from our journal. So the proportion of good basic science papers to clinical papers has gotten smaller over the years. Still, when people read the journal they know they will get an interesting variety of basic research papers, and at least a few papers in every issue that they will find of specific interest. Every issue has variety: articles on human, animal, and clinical research. We try to make it varied, although the bulk of our papers are on human research. I’d like to see us publish even more animal neuroscience, though.

  What’s driven the field to become more clinically oriented?

The United States. Sleep disorders medicine has burgeoned in the US, in particular. There is a lot of general clinical interest in that field and because there are a lot of people, obviously with sleep disorders, there’s a boom in the research. In Europe, there’s always been an interest in the clinical side and in sleep disorder clinics, but it hasn’t expanded in the way it has in the US. One area in particular, for instance, is in breathing-related sleep disorders, which are often associated with obesity. Very obese people tend to have breathing problems when they sleep; they have very destructive sleep and, to be quite frank, since there is a higher incidence of obesity in the US than in Europe, there is more research on these problems being done. Another factor is that where there’s a lot of clinical interest, there’s money and investment for research and more people employed in the field who can produce papers.

  What kind of papers does the Journal of Sleep Research tend to publish in the clinical/disorders area?

We do cover the whole spectrum of sleep disorders, however, a lot of our papers are on things like shift work and people falling asleep driving. So we have papers that do fit in with everyday behavior, and everyday sleep or lack of sleep in healthy people.

  What plans to you have for keeping the Journal of Sleep Research competitive in the future?

Well, I think we just have to maintain our solid reputation. One of the important issues in journals is credibility. Scientists and clinicians are very suspicious of new journals. They always want to send their papers to the best-quality journals. So it’s very important, not that we’ve established a solid reputation, to maintain it. We have to make sure we get and publish good-quality papers, be very rigorous in the review process, turn papers around quickly, and publish quickly. If we do that we will continue to appeal to the top-quality researchers in the field.

One other issue is to make sure we always have top-quality associate editors and that those editors cover the evolving research. Right now we have nine associate editors and they are specialists in different fields of sleep research. As the field itself evolves, we have to recruit new associate editors to fit the expanding disciplines. For example, sleep neurology and the genetics of sleep are increasing rapidly, and so we just recruited two top-grade guys in these areas as associate editors. We then try to work very closely as a team. We keep associate editors very informed of what’s going on. It’s important that they not think of themselves as being thousands of miles away, working on their own. So we do have a close-knit team and that helps enormously.