As we announced last June, on May, 20th we received excellent news: the Metas de Enfermería journal had been accepted for inclusion in Scopus by its Content Selection & Advisory Board (CSAB). This Committee, formed by 17 independent experts with a high scientific profile (within the international research setting and the publishing sector for journals including all scientific and geographical areas), conducts a robust and transparent selection process (1).

In its report, the CSAB informed us that the editorial team was commendable in terms of the increasing number of citations in international journals; and although it was necessary to strengthen its policy regarding international contributions, the fact that the journal objectives were primarily focused on Spanish-speaking countries was very positively valued. This is a very stimulating comment, in these difficult times where scientific literature in English plays the main role, therefore leaving Spanish-speaking authors in a certainly complex scenario, which is somehow discouraging.

They also referred, more specifically, that the journal includes scientifically solid articles, and relevant for an international academic or professional audience in this area; it has academic relevance, as shown by citations by other journals currently covered by Scopus; our abstracts meet the requirements of Scopus English Language and are generally clear, and provide an excellent summary of the contents of each article; articles are consistent with the stated objectives of the journal, which are as clear as their broad scope policies; an increasing number of citations can be observed, which shows a very positive development of the publication.

But, what does this news really mean? What can it represent for the Nursing Community in particular, but also, overall for other Health Sciences professionals?

Scopus was created in 2004 by the Elsevier Group, and it is the largest peer-reviewed database of citations and literature abstracts, including 100% of Health Sciences records from MedLine. Currently it includes 22,800 titles from over 5,000 publishing companies, and 69 million records, thus offering the most complete view of multidisciplinary scientific articles at worldwide level. However, it is worth highlighting that 26% of its titles can be classified within the Health Sciences category, and 31% in Social Sciences (1). It is undeniable that the fact that Metas de Enfermería is included within this immense collection will represent an excellent visibility window for the contents of our journal, and it will also increase the eligibility of our publication for authors to send us their manuscripts.

On the other hand, and most closely linked with the evaluation of the quality of sources and contents processed by Scopus, it is important to highlight the great advantages available, including: track citations over time for a set of authors or documents, access to the h-index of authors; generate the Scopus Author Profile, enabling to import their list of publications in Scopus and connect with ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID); obtain performance indicators for the journal such as the Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) which measures the citation impact of a journal in its setting, and the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), which is a measurement of the prestige of a journal, based on the weight of the citations received (1). All these benefits are increasingly necessary for those who publish; well then, those authors who choose Metas de Enfermería will have all of them available, and therefore will be able to verify the quality of their publications in evaluating agencies and institutions.

The inclusion in Scopus, with the highly positive evaluation received, confirms to us that we are in the right track; and this has been made possible by the contribution by our Advisory and Scientific Committees, as well as by those with on-going trust in our team who send us their articles and, of course, those professionals who feed daily on the contents of Metas de Enfermería in order to improve their practices.

We are conducting all the formalities required by Scopus so that our articles start appearing shortly in this prestigious database, and the journal can start to use their metrics. I don’t want to end this without thanking again the entire great nursing community for their trust in Metas de Enfermería for over 20 years, and without whom this excellent achievement would not have been possible.