Welcome to the new Australian Rheumatology Journal (ARJ), the official journal of the Australian Rheumatology Association (ARA). It is simultaneously an exciting and a daunting time to be launching a new academic journal. The biomedical literature continues its rapid growth, the pressure to publish grows with it, and large language AI models have arrived suddenly in every part of our lives. These create real challenges, but also a real opportunity to redefine the role of academic journals in the modern era. Rather than ask whether we need yet another journal, we asked how to build a publishing environment better suited to these times: one that is more efficient, more equitable, and more useful to authors and readers.
As a first step, our aim was to deliberately centre the ARJ within its context — to support the ARA as it strives to build a complete Australian rheumatology ecosystem that combines clinical practice and training with a coordinated research cycle of funding, research performance, publication, clinical practice guidelines and care standards. The journal reinforces the ARA’s place as an important actor on the world rheumatology stage and will provide ongoing opportunities for all of our members to find their place in the ecosystem and be supported to make their own contribution. We believe that communities of practice can, and should, play an important role in curating and disseminating scientific knowledge that is trustworthy and relevant to their members and those for whom they care. Equally important is to contextualise research, helping readers understand what new findings mean for Australian practice, and how they fit alongside what we already know.
More than anything, ARJ aims to be trustworthy. In a publishing landscape distorted by commercial incentives, and an information environment increasingly saturated by AI-generated content, the most valuable thing a professional society journal can uniquely offer is provenance: research that is selected, reviewed, and contextualised by a community of practice with no agenda beyond its members and the patients they serve.
ARJ is also designed to embody a sense of place: as a natural home for Australian musculoskeletal research that highlights Australian issues and challenges — including the care of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and those living in rural and remote locations — while simultaneously looking outwards to the global rheumatology community and building on ways of knowing that have existed on this continent for millennia. Our goal is for ARJ to be the primary destination for high-quality Australian musculoskeletal research, focused on scientific inquiry rather than commercial imperatives.
To support this, we have embraced a ‘diamond’ open access model that ensures that all of our content is freely available to everyone, removes publication fees for ARA members, and minimises other barriers to publication. Our fully online, open-access, continuous publication model is designed to enhance visibility, engagement and rapid real-world impact — underpinned by rigorous standards applied to the science, communication, and integrity of what we publish. We are not pursuing a traditional Impact Factor; we believe the community, over time, is the right judge of what matters, and we will privilege alternative metrics, engagement, and longitudinal influence over the metrics of an earlier era.
An important part of nurturing a community of practice is to ensure that the next generation is inspired and supported to develop their own skills and create positive change. This applies not only to those who will carry on the rich tradition of world-class Australian rheumatology research, but more broadly to all of our trainees, who must become increasingly sophisticated consumers of research in the modern knowledge environment. To this end, teaching and training will be a key function of the journal from publication of trainee research projects to structured training and recognition of peer review, and opportunities for career development in academic publishing.
ARJ is informed by values that include equity, openness, collaboration, rigour, integrity, and innovation. These values are reflected in our plans to support meaningful consumer involvement at every stage of the research process, prioritise trustworthiness and open disclosure, and embrace a dynamic approach to manuscript handling, including double-anonymous, collaborative, open peer review and community commentary.
We do not yet know exactly what scientific publishing will look like in five years’ time. But we know what we want this journal to stand for: a trustworthy home for Australian musculoskeletal research, openly reviewed, freely available, and built together. We have assembled an outstanding editorial team with expertise spanning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, consumer, paediatric, allied health, basic science, private-practice and early-career perspectives. The rest is up to all of us, and I look forward to building it with you.