The Medical Journal of Australia, the nation’s leading peer-reviewed general medical journal, announces the appointment of a new Editor-in-Chief following an extensive international recruitment process.
The Journal’s parent company, the Australasian Medical Publishing Company (AMPCo), today announced that Professor Virginia (Ginny) Barbour will be the new Editor-in-Chief. Professor Barbour is the Academic Lead, Office for Scholarly Communication at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and Director, Open Access Australasia. Professor Barbour will start her new role as Editor-in-Chief on 23 January 2023.
AMPCo Board Chair Damian Smith said that Professor Barbour was an outstanding choice for the role.
“Prof Barbour is one of Australia’s foremost and experienced medical editors, someone with high integrity, superb judgement and a real affinity with the Journal and our purpose. I’m thrilled she will be leading the Journal, and our talented AMPCo publishing team,” he said.
“Australia’s flagship peer-reviewed general medical journal is over one hundred years’ old. Leading it is an honour and a responsibility. Under Professor Barbour’s leadership, I’m confident the Journal will continue to display the highest standards of integrity and independence, as well as report on topics that engage medical doctors with relevant and trustworthy information, in turn enabling better health for all Australians.”
Commenting on the appointment, Prof. Barbour said she has great respect for the heritage and history of the Journal and is looking forward to starting in the role.
“My predominant professional interest is improving scholarly communication, through increasing access to research for medical practitioners, researchers and the wider public, and enhancing the integrity, quality and reproducibility of the scholarly literature,” she said.
“I’m very much looking forward to leading the MJA in these exciting and important times for medical publishing.”
Mr Smith said Professor Barbour takes over from Laureate Professor Nick Talley, AC, who will step down in January 2023, after a highly successful seven years in the role.
“On behalf of the AMPCo Board, I’d like to say thank you to Professor Nick Talley, who has been an outstanding leader seeing the Journal through considerable change. Prof Talley has made a tremendous contribution to the Journal, the medical community and industry, particularly 2 during the COVID-19 pandemic. His pre-eminent publishing achievements led to all-time high impact factor, and he leaves the Journal in strong shape.”
Prof Talley said it had been a privilege to lead the Journal. During his tenure, he significantly reshaped the Journal, which included a new editorial advisory group, reduced research publishing turnaround times, and delivered international collaborations with other medical journals.
Prof Barbour started her medical publishing career at The Lancet. She went on to be a founding editor of PLOS Medicine, the flagship medical journal of the open access publisher, Public Library of Science (PLOS) and she led medical publishing initiatives at PLOS for over a decade. She has a medical degree from Cambridge University, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford.
ABOUT AMPCo
Established in 1913, the Australasian Medical Publishing Company (AMPCo) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Australian Medical Association (AMA). As a respected publisher in the health care sector and leading provider of doctor data services, AMPCo is committed to producing leading-edge health information and resources for doctors practicing in Australia. AMPCo’s two business streams, Data and Publishing, helps clients achieve their business goals by providing end-to-end multi-channel marketing services, several advertising channels and strong doctor audience engagement.
ABOUT INCOMING EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Prof Barbour is a leader in open access, publishing, and ethics initiatives including being a former Chair of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). She is currently Vice-Chair of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) Steering Committee, a member of the Executive Board of Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), an editorial advisor to medRxiv, and a Plan S Ambassador. She is on the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Research Quality Steering Committee. In 2021, she was an expert advisor to the Australian Delegation to UNESCO, which finalised the text of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.
ABOUT OUTGOING EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Distinguished Laureate Professor Nicholas Talley AC is the outgoing Editor-in-Chief of The Medical Journal of Australia, a world-leading gastroenterologist, researcher, educator, clinician and academic at the University of Newcastle, and former President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. Prof Talley was previously Pro Vice-Chancellor (PVC) of the Faculty of Health and Medicine and then PVC for Global Research at the University of Newcastle and is a senior staff specialist and gastroenterologist at John Hunter Hospital. He is the author of highly regarded medical 3 textbooks including Clinical Examination and Examination Medicine, both in their 9th editions. He holds research appointments at Mayo Clinic and the University of North Carolina in the United States and was previously a Foreign Guest Professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He has been awarded the title Emeritus Editor-In-Chief of the Medical Journal of Australia.
12 September 2022
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