IOVS aims to be a top choice for authors looking to publish impactful and statistically valid studies in all areas of the visual system. Accordingly,
IOVS continues to be a popular destination for authors. Shown in
Figure 1 is a summary of the submissions in each of the past two years—we saw an increase of 427 articles from 2023–2024 (a 23% increase)! One goal has been to reduce the number of papers offered transfer to
Translational Vision Science & Technology (
TVST), and we improved somewhat, going from nearly 12% of submitted articles being offered transfer to just over 8%. This is due largely to authors more carefully reviewing the author guidance on
IOVS versus
TVST scope (see below), and the hope is to further reduce transfer offers in 2025. Authors often ask why articles are rejected without peer review—with so many submissions we need to have some initial filtering of manuscripts—decisions to not send papers for review is sometimes made by me as EIC, but also frequently with input from an Associate Editor (AE) and/or Editorial Board Member (EBM). Some examples include plagiarism, overall low-quality presentation, a lack of novelty or rigor, and being outside the scope of
IOVS. Having been on the receiving end of many desk rejections myself, I realize this is generally not welcome news for an author. My goal is to provide these decisions quickly, to provide authors with the freedom to resubmit their manuscript elsewhere without delay. However, our growth in submissions has been comprised largely of high-quality manuscripts. As can be seen in
Figure 1, of the 427 additional submissions from 2023–2024, about 74% (314 submissions) were sent for peer review, meaning that there is an increased need for high-quality peer review, which I touch on toward the end of this editorial.