We have now completed our sixth year as Thorax editors and are delighted that the Journal has continued to be so successful. As usual, the annual round of impact factor announcements was eagerly awaited by the editorial team and we were all delighted with the news that our impact factor for 2007, published in June 2008, had risen to the highest ever for Thorax at 6.226. The impact factor for 2007 reflects the number of citations in 2007 divided by the number of original papers and reviews published in Thorax in 2005 and 2006. We have thus maintained our position as the second highest ranked respiratory journal in terms of impact factor, behind the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. This increase in the Thorax impact factor is a result of the high quality papers and reviews that you have all submitted to the journal for publication.

Perhaps the most visible change has been (we hope!) the change of front cover and our successful introduction of images to illustrate each issue (figs 1^–3). These images were selected by the COPD research team at UCL Medical School, according to some democratic process! As they have to be of high quality, they come from the Science Photo Library. In addition, the inside page format has changed, and this is consistent with the new house style of BMJ Journals.

The number of submissions over the past year has remained steady compared with previous years at 1434, with 872 full original papers submitted to the journal. The time to the first decision on an original paper …