Obviously both of you are right, in case of articles with "same data" the "name" of the country, institute and corresponding author plays significant role. If the corres. author has good relationship with the editor of the journals or reviewers they can easily get in to and in turn these people (corr. author) may be a reviewer of another high impact journal and could help them (the one who helped him). it's a cycle.

so in middle of these cycle if a newbie needs to do something he/she should really produce something of "novelty". But there are incidents like a scientists whose work was pathetically rejected by "nature" was later awarded with "Nobel Prize" !!!!

Keep working hard !!!!!

Cheers!!!!!!

Thanks for raising this question. I also sometime feel the same. Because, as an Indian (belonging to so called third world country), I and my colleagues faced many rejections, many a times even from small impact factor journals citing the reason of "no novelty". At the same time I could find many similar articles published in high ranking journals. I always used to wonder what make those articles different from ours when we have almost same data? Is our data unreliable / unacceptable? But I could never find perfect answer for this.

As per my experience so far, I think many factors reflect impact of your work, one and major of course being country. I would add institute, corresponding author and impact of its previous publications!

Obviously both of you are right, in case of articles with "same data" the "name" of the country, institute and corresponding author plays significant role. If the corres. author has good relationship with the editor of the journals or reviewers they can easily get in to and in turn these people (corr. author) may be a reviewer of another high impact journal and could help them (the one who helped him). it's a cycle.

so in middle of these cycle if a newbie needs to do something he/she should really produce something of "novelty". But there are incidents like a scientists whose work was pathetically rejected by "nature" was later awarded with "Nobel Prize" !!!!

Keep working hard !!!!!

Cheers!!!!!!

No,no,no,the rejection is a making decision,according to the image theory to explain,the reviewer first use his/her value image to fit your value from your paper,if both match very well,ok ,congratulation! Your paper accept,otherwise,may be you can fell disppoint,the reson is very simple,so you can survey the value positon of journal,then make option to submit which journal,good luck to you!

the same data set can be deployed for studies in different regions and with new parameters other than the talked ones.

As a reviewer, I don't care about who the authors are or where their institute is, or who is the group leader. What matters is the quality of the data and the novelty of the data, in addition to how well the paper is written. The most important thing is to ensure you do something novel (don't repeat something another author has done). If you show something novel, then the next concern is the quality of the data, methods used and the quality of english language. I have also experienced many rejections :(, however, I believe how well 'connected' you or your supervisor is makes a difference only at the very beginning, when you submit your paper. This is especially for high impact journals, but not for lower impact journals. Don't be disheartened, make sure you conduct novel research and then make sure the methods are good (or excellent), then make the english language perfect (have an english speaking author proof read the paper multiple times) and I think you have a much better chance !! Also some luck is also necessary, for every paper !

Dear Dr. Bulmer, I agree with your comments, but I think that instuition and country where the article originated from are considerate by journals

Well, I can't say, I'm not an editor. What I can say is that as a journal reviewer, this has no bearing for me. Furthermore, I believe it SHOULD have NO bearing for journal editors as well.

@Vrudha Nair: give and take policy!!!

I think this fact pointed by Vrudha is really valid. I personally know a group leader who works just next door to the editor in chief of a well known journal and she published her article in a week (from submission to final acceptance!). If you read that paper, there is nothing in it and it certainly didnt deserve to be in that journal, leave alone publishing it in a week. But it happened and it happens.

I certainly agree with Andrew that there should no bias in accepting or rejecting an article based on the region and / or authors.

Very rightfully said Guido. Your second point about novelty and originality stuff is genuinly valid pathophysiological and biochemical conditions, enzymatic reactions, novel activity findings for a known or an unknown protein / enzyme and so on. Many a times we see only one group keep on publishing on one aspect of a particular protein but others are unable to replicate or reproduce those findings. But only because the senior author is a well known person or a so called "Big Shot", nobody goes against it. If somebody tries to do that then editors reject such articles. Or in contrary, if you also find similar results and tries to publish then journals reject articles stating that its already published!

Dr Jakob touched a very sensitive points.

Some Journals do not communicate to the reviewers the name of the authors and center, and some send a "blinded" manuscript. However, the reality is that in many cases the authors and institution are known. Because of the tight "scientific" (and political) connections, these "top" authors are mostly accepted with less criticism than other ones.

It also occurrs they some known centers get an idea from a scientifically "unknown" author. Then they "confirm" the results and the following papers do not quote the first author. it did happen also in the past. If you speak about Bechet disease you forget that the first author who described the pathology was Adamantiades. If you speak about the takotsubo cardiopathy you forget that the pathology had been desvribed in Europe in the 1968-72 years.

To get a paper published in some Journals is not only related to the quality of the data, but certain also to the name and "reputation" of the author. Indeed, sometimes I wonder why some multicenter studies are uiblised in top rank Journals, because the quality and novelty of data is insufficient. There are many examples.

Derl colleague Jakob accept the reality as it is. In some case you may get a better chance if you win a know person as a co-author ..

A last note: Dr. Rangrez is telling the same story and I confirm that he ist telling the truth. As you see, also in scientific press, contacts and relatinship make life more confortable. And do not forget the impact of published papers on the funding of some centers. Why should scientific press be different from the rst of thw word?

Lüscher TF, Gersh B, Hindrick et a. The European Heart Journal on the move: can scientific publishing be further improved? Eur Heart J 2013;34:409-15.

The problem we are discussing is so important that the Eur. Heart J has published an important article (see above). Without repeating, the authors respected cardiologists) recognize the serious negative aspects of the peer review as presently available. They admit. with reference, that the system is biased, unjust, unaccountable, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong. Bohr's correspondence with Heisenberg, Einstein, Pauli and other titans of the quantum mechanics, for instance, is a prominent example.

Most editors try their best, but reviewers and editors are not perfect either.

I think that this article confirm the malaise and tries to indicate a better way for the future.

I think that this should settle the point we are discussing.

Dear Dr. Cocco,

Citation you used (the system is biased, unjust, unaccountable, easily fixed…) does not belong to authors you cited; they cited it from another paper and noted that they do not really agree with it. Here is balanced conclusion of their paper:

While scientific publishing is less than perfect, overall it has achieved an impressively high level in past decades. It can certainly be further improved, and, together with highly dedicated and motivated associated editors and reviewers, the current editorial team of the European Heart Journal is committed to taking that very road into the future. For those who remain unsatisfied, Salvador Dali’s words may be a consolation: ‘Have no fear of perfection, you will never reach it!’

Just a reminder: good journals may have more than 2 reviewers per paper and acceptance rate below 10%. Tough to get in. System is not perfect, but much better than nothing.

First of all, why should you publish data that have previosly been published. I think the previous publish data could be due some journals are local and others are international, so it can be appeared in both journals as well as with different language. Second, if data were published, it is the responsibility of the author who should state that the data have not published or submitted to other journal, the editorial board and t the referees of the journal have also the responibilty for that. Having many papers with little data?????

To Dr. Dusevich: The authors of the article in the Eur. heart J. quote thze criticism from other authors to get the point that the criticism to improve the quality of the rewvewrs and editorial workthe Journal does the best and that possible inprovement shoukd be achieved. There no doubt that the fact previously published data should not be published again, in any form. E.g. I don't agree wit the colleague Sherif, that the data can be published again in a local papae and in another local journal. I think tha it is enough if publisheed data are presented in a native lange at local congresses, ment ioning the first and only publication.

The pojnt is another,m and I appreciate the salavator Dali's words.

However, some discussants

made it clear that the name of the instituition and certain names of the authors may "impress" the editors and the peer review system. This is perhaps the worst in some scientific papers. Then there is the sponsoring from the pharmaceutical companies, which is helping some ppaers to be published.

Good Journals may be proud to have a