One of the first things the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) had to address in 2005 when it was being set up was the requirement in its Work Plan 2005-2006 to issue a “weekly epidemiological report”. This coincided with a visit to ECDC in June 2005 by the two editorial teams of Eurosurveillance; the Paris team from the Institut de Veille Sanitaire (InVS) in charge of the monthly release and the London team from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) in charge of the weekly release of the journal. This first meeting triggered a chain of events, leading up to the successful transfer of Eurosurveillance to ECDC in March 2007. This monthly issue of the journal symbolises the successful transfer as it has been co-produced by the Paris team and the new editors at ECDC in Stockholm.

From the very beginning there was a full agreement between InVS, HPA and ECDC that Eurosurveillance would be handed over to ECDC as soon as the contract with the Commission would end in early 2007. This agreement was also supported by the European Commission throughout the process. Through a great flexibility and generosity from InVS and HPA, a satellite editorial office was set up at ECDC in the autumn of 2005, manned by an Assistant Editor seconded from HPA and supported by a newly appointed Associate Editor from the ECDC staff (see www.eurosurveillance.org/ew/2005/050901.asp#1). Through this arrangement, the new ECDC editorial team (Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, and three Assistant Editors) could gradually assume responsibility for the journal, and for the first time both the weekly and the monthly releases of the journal will now be produced from the same office. ECDC is grateful for all the effort and commitment from all the members in the previous editorial teams for making each step of this transfer as smooth as possible.

It was not a small “gift” handed over to ECDC by the Commission and the previous contract holders. At the time of the transfer, the journal had over 10,000 subscribers to the electronic releases from all over the globe, and the quarterly print compilation (with articles from both the weekly and monthly releases) is issued in 6,000 copies. Over the years, articles from Eurosurveillance have been cited almost 500 times in the mailing list ProMed (only surpassed by Lancet among the European scientific journals). These impressive figures reflect the dedicated work of the previous editorial teams and the network of editorial advisers in the Member States to pick up high quality short and long scientific articles from all across Europe and have them published in a very timely way.

So what about the future? ECDC is fully committed to further developing Eurosurveillance, to make it the leading journal in its field in Europe. The editorial team is now applying for an impact factor for the journal, and whenever ECDC meets with European public health experts in Europe, they will be encouraged to submit their best work to Eurosurveillance. To safeguard the credibility of the journal, the editorial office is working under full editorial independence from the Centre, and submitted articles will be judged solely on the basis of their scientific standard. This is very important, but also fully in line with ECDC being a provider of independent scientific advice, according to our Founding Regulation (see: www.ecdc.europa.eu/About_us/Key_Documents/ecdc_regulations.pdf). As Director of ECDC, I am proud to have Eurosurveillance as an ECDC publication. The journal is of strategic importance to the Centre as it has already proven its value in disseminating the most relevant scientific information to public health officials across Europe and the world in a very timely manner.