Meeting on June 1, 2025 (hybrid meeting with in person attendees at the Milan Congress Center; all voting members in attendance)

An Editorial update was provided, including transition planning for a new member of the Vox Editorial board.

Information related to publication statistics was also discussed including the gradually increasing acceptance rate for submitted papers (from 37% in 2019 to 45% in 2024). The Wiley website “journal finder” function was explored and was found to be a useful tool to compare Vox with other journals in related fields. This same “Journal Finder” site shows article publication charges (APC). Discussion and review of the Vox APC followed with consideration for changes to the APC at year end.

Implementation of term limits for editorial board members was also agreed and compilation of start dates for current editorial board members was planned.

A publishers update from Wiley was also provided including preliminary discussions related to an updated contract between Wiley and ISBT.

Information regarding the number of authors submitting to Vox and using a transformational agreement to pay the APC was noted to be 72%. For those using a transformational agreement the articles appear as open access. Availability of new transformation agreements in some additional countries was brought forward and a plan to publicise this through the regional directors was agreed.

The report from the ISBT board highlighted planning for Vox SC membership changes over the next year. With G Clarke completing her term as chair, she will become the ISBT member representative on the committee. L Fung will complete her term on the board as a regular member as she assumes the ISBT Presidents role and a new Chair will join the committee when the new Secretary General is elected.

Meeting of November 17, 2025 (Zoom video call), regrets from one voting member; all others in attendance

The committee reviewed editorial board start dates and recommended that editorial board members be appointed for a term of 4 years, repeatable up to a maximum of 3 times for a 12 year term. Contract changes reflecting these terms for section editors were planned along with a strategy to maintain data on current board members term in office.

Article publication charges were discussed at length including the relationship between planning for future open access status and the APC. It was agreed that the APC would remain stable for the upcoming year.

The committee discussed the Journal Metrics. To date the focus of the metrics discussion has been the impact factor however other metrics may be a more valuable tool for authors and the board. Article acceptance rate, publication turn around times, downloads and full text views are of most interest to authors, according to the publisher’s survey data. For ISBT board review, the number of article submissions is also of interest. A plan to highlight these metrics was agreed along with providing information on proportion of Open Access articles.

Current editorial board membership and upcoming changes were reported by the editor in chief.

A discussion of ethics statements requirements in publications was referred by the Standing Committee on ethics and information provided back to that committee.

A recent suggestion from the publisher to use a new article format template was discussed. While this template may increase the speed of preparation for publication it also removes a number of Vox Sanguinis specific design features and negatively impacts on readability. Following discussion the committee agreed to maintain our current format though a change may be required in future.