The Portuguese Journal of Cardiology (Revista Portuguesa de Cardiologia, RPC), the official journal of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology (SPC), is a journal of high scientific quality and national prestige that is currently in a phase of expansion and increasing international standing.

As well as the part it plays in training the education of cardiologists and keeping them up-to-date, the RPC also helps to facilitate cooperation and communication between members of the SPC and with colleagues in other Portuguese-speaking countries, acting as a channel for scientific research in the area of cardiology that is carried out in Portugal.

At this turning-point in the history of the Journal, we have a very clear idea of the responsibility of the positions we occupy as Editor-in-Chief backed by a great team that, as well as being highly qualified in scientific terms, is characterized by rigor, hard work, cohesiveness, capacity for dialogue, enthusiasm and passion for the project, qualities that are essential if we are to live up to the legacy of those who came before us.

Our aim is to continue the editorial course developed by the preceding team, led by the previous Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Lino Gonçalves, who despite adverse economic conditions succeeded in significantly improving the quality of the Journal, at the same time strengthening and consolidating the RPC's relationship with the Board of the SPC.

Nevertheless, we consider that the Journal's quality can be improved even further, by optimizing certain aspects of organization, form and content.

A problem that has been identified as requiring an urgent solution is the current unacceptable delay in the publication of submitted articles. We are seeking effective solutions to overcome this bottleneck, which include reducing the time taken both for editorial decision-making and for translations.

To this end, new procedures are now in place to reduce review times: reviewers are now selected according to their areas of expertise; a series of actions are being developed to enhance both the effectiveness and the speed of the review process; incentives will be offered to accelerate the translation of articles; and an additional translator has been hired, to enable two issues to be processed simultaneously.

Another of our team's medium-term goals is to increase the Journal's impact factor by means of improvements in quality, including the publication of editorials by leading members of the international medical community (contributions from Thomas Lüscher, Thor Edvardsen, Denise Hachul, Stefan Höfer and others have been confirmed for the first half of 2020), the introduction of new article types, widening the online dissemination of Journal articles through the recent creation of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, and improvements in our online app.

Although our main priority remains, as always, to improve the Journal's scientific quality, at the same time we are working to assure its financial status. To this end, monthly meetings are being held with the SPC's operations manager to implement marketing and advertising strategies through a new functional structure, which will enable the tables of contents of the different issues to be analyzed in advance and will help suggest potential sponsors.

In view of the important role of the Journal as the mouthpiece of Portuguese cardiology, we count on the collaboration of all those concerned to work collectively and proactively in raising the Journal's profile and improving its scientific credibility by increasing both the number of submissions from internationally renowned authors and the number of citations.

We thank you all for your help.