JISAKOS at Ten: A Journal, a Crew, and a Safe Anchorage for ISAKOS
Philippe Noel Neyret, MD, PhD, Prof., FRANCE Jon Karlsson, MD, PhD, Prof., SWEDEN Volker Musahl, MD, Prof., UNITED STATES Olufemi R. Ayeni, MD, PhD, MSc, FRCSC, CANADA João Espregueira-Mendes, MD, PhD, Full Prof., PORTUGAL
ISAKOS eNewsletters
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2026
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In January 2027, the Journal of ISAKOS (JISAKOS) will mark 10 years since the publication of its first issue in January/February 2016. This anniversary is more than a bibliographic milestone: it tells the story of an idea that became a journal, of a society that chose to build its own scientific voice, and of a crew of colleagues who believed that ISAKOS needed a safe anchorage for knowledge in arthroscopy, knee surgery, orthopaedic sports medicine, sports traumatology, rehabilitation, prevention, and degenerative joint disease.
The tenth anniversary also offers ISAKOS members and friends a wonderful opportunity to celebrate together during the 2027 ISAKOS Congress in Sydney. JISAKOS belongs to this international community. It was born from the same spirit that has guided ISAKOS from the beginning: connecting continents, disciplines, surgical traditions, researchers, educators, and clinicians in the service of better patient care.
Before JISAKOS existed, the official journal relationship of ISAKOS was with Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery, known to many members as the “green journal.” That association served the Society well. Yet, as ISAKOS grew in maturity, membership, educational activity, congresses, courses, committees, and global influence, the need for its own journal became increasingly evident. ISAKOS required a publication that could speak with its own voice and reflect the breadth of its mission.
The creation of JISAKOS was a long process carried forward by many colleagues, committees, officers, and friends of the Society. Among the key creators and early builders were C. Niek van Dijk, appointed founding Editor-in-Chief; Dr Leendert Blankevoort, the first Managing Editor; John Bartlett, whose task force recognised that ISAKOS had the maturity and global reach to take ownership of its own journal; and the ISAKOS leadership of the time. Professor Marc R. Safran, then President of ISAKOS, played an important role, together with the presidential line and the ISAKOS Board, in transforming an aspiration into a formal project with a clear editorial identity, publisher negotiations, peer-review structure, and launch plan.
A symbolic milestone occurred on March 23, 2015, during the AAOS Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, when Professor Masahiro Kurosaka, an ISAKOS leader and Past President, signed the agreement that helped bring JISAKOS into being (Figure 1). That signature marked a decisive moment: ISAKOS was committing itself not only to organising meetings and producing education, but also to building and preserving its own scientific record.
Figure 1. March 23, 2015, AAOS Annual Meeting, Las Vegas: Professor Masahiro Kurosaka signs a key agreement in the creation of JISAKOS, marking a decisive step toward an official scientific journal owned by the Society.
Sailing Distant Waters
The title of the inaugural editorial by Professor C. Niek van Dijk was unforgettable: “Sailing distant waters, in search of safe anchorage…” (Figure 2). The maritime metaphor was more than a poetic image. It expressed the purpose of the new journal. In a vast and sometimes turbulent ocean of scientific information, variable evidence, regional traditions, new techniques, and rapidly changing publishing models, JISAKOS would offer direction, perspective, and a protected place for reliable knowledge.
The First Issue and the Founding Editorial Model
The first issue of JISAKOS appeared in January/February 2016 and was published by BMJ (Figure 3). The journal was launched in print, with online access also available through BMJ. From the outset, the journal was deliberately international. ISAKOS then had thousands of members across more than ninety countries, and the editorial board, authors, and reviewers were expected to reflect that worldwide reach. The early formula relied strongly on invited, carefully selected reviews, especially the State-of-the-Art (SOTA) papers, which quickly became one of the journal’s signatures.
Figure 3. March 1, 2016, AAOS Annual Meeting, Orlando: celebrating the first issue of JISAKOS, Volume 1, Issue 1, and the beginning of the journal’s public life.
These SOTA papers were not ordinary literature reviews. Their purpose was to bring together experts from different regions of the world to analyse the current evidence; compare their perspectives and approaches to diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, prevention, and follow-up; and help busy clinicians identify what their regional Society had selected as important for them to study. In this sense, the journal was educational from the outset. It was also an invitation: members were asked to recognise the journal as their own.
The opening article of Volume 1, Issue 1 was a systematic review of weight-bearing after microfracture surgery, co-authored by Olufemi R. Ayeni and Volker Musahl through a collaboration involving McMaster University and the University of Pittsburgh. The appearance of the journal’s future Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editor in its very first issue offers a striking example of the continuity between JISAKOS’s origins and its current editorial leadership.
Growth, Recognition, and the Move to Open Access
During its first 5 years, JISAKOS grew from a young journal with a strong invited-review identity into a broader peer-reviewed publication. It expanded to include original research, systematic reviews, current concepts reviews, case reports, classic papers, technical notes, and video techniques. Acceptance into MEDLINE/PubMed from Volume 6, Issue 1 in January 2021 was a major milestone that increased the journal’s visibility, credibility, and service to authors, confirming that JISAKOS had reached an important level of maturity.
Until early 2020, ISAKOS members and subscribers could choose to receive a print copy or view the journal online. When printing challenges and delivery disruptions emerged during the global pandemic, the journal shifted to digital-only distribution, ensuring continuity of access while maximizing global visibility.
The journal’s current Impact Factor of 4.6 and Cite Score of 3.7 are impressive achievements for a publication established only a decade ago. These indicators reflect the increasing visibility, reach, and influence of JISAKOS within orthopaedic sports medicine and related fields.
The move from BMJ to Elsevier and the adoption of a Gold Open Access model marked another strategic step. Professor van Dijk described the change to improve exposure, awareness, access, and support for editors, reviewers, authors, readers, and ISAKOS itself. For a global society, open access was more than a technical publishing decision: it expressed the belief that high-quality scientific knowledge should travel easily across borders and reach colleagues regardless of geography or institutional subscription.
Despite being online-only since 2020 and open access since 2022, JISAKOS maintains registered ISSN numbers for both formats.
A New Editorial Chapter after July 1, 2023
On July 1, 2023, Professor Olufemi R. Ayeni succeeded Professor van Dijk as Editor-in-Chief. This transition opened a new editorial chapter while preserving the journal’s founding spirit. Professor Ayeni, together with colleagues including Professor Vikas Khanduja and the wider editorial team, has emphasised inclusive excellence: the need to support strong science wherever it is produced, including by researchers from low- and middle-income countries who may face barriers in methodology, writing, publication fees, or access to mentorship. More recently, on February 1, 2026, Professor Volker Musahl became Deputy Editor, bringing extensive clinical, research, and editorial experience to help JISAKOS navigate the waters ahead.
The JISAKOS Excellence in Authorship Program is a practical expression of the JISAKOS vision. The program is designed to support promising authors, particularly those with limited access to established academic publishing networks, throughout the journey from manuscript development to publication. The first class of mentees completed the program during the 2025 ISAKOS Congress (Figure 4), and the second class is now underway and will be presented at the next ISAKOS Congress in Sydney. By offering guidance, mentorship, peer-review navigation, and open-access fee support, the program strengthens both fairness and quality. It reminds us that a truly international journal should not merely receive manuscripts from around the world: it should help create the conditions in which talented clinicians and investigators everywhere can contribute to the global conversation.
Figure 4. Showcase of the first class of mentees at the 2025 ISAKOS Congress in Munich.
Trust, Technology, and the Next Decade
As JISAKOS enters its second decade, artificial intelligence (AI) will inevitably influence scientific publishing. Used responsibly, AI may help editors identify reviewers, screen submissions, improve language, detect image manipulation, and reduce administrative burdens. It may also help authors whose first language is not English present their work more clearly. These benefits could support the human mission of the journal rather than replace it.
Yet AI also makes the metaphor of safe anchorage even more relevant. In a sea increasingly crowded with automated summaries, fabricated manuscripts, superficial reviews, and information detached from clinical judgement, trusted peer-reviewed journals will become more necessary, not less. JISAKOS will need to embrace useful tools while defending scientific integrity, methodological rigour, expert review, and the practical wisdom that comes from treating real patients.
Looking ahead, JISAKOS can deepen its role as a global forum by extending mentorship, strengthening international and interdisciplinary collaboration, supporting transparent and reproducible research, and adopting new technologies with care. Its future will depend on remaining open to innovation while preserving the editorial independence, scientific rigour, and human judgement that earned the trust of its readers during its first decade.
Celebrating Together in Sydney
This tenth anniversary belongs to all those who imagined, signed, edited, reviewed, wrote, read, promoted, and defended the journal. It belongs to the founding officers and board members who believed that ISAKOS needed its own voice, to the first editorial team that built the vessel, to the successive teams that kept it moving, and to the members who gave it purpose. In January 2027, and especially during the ISAKOS Congress in Sydney, JISAKOS should be celebrated not only as a publication, but as a shared adventure.
The image of a boat remains the right one. Ten years ago, JISAKOS left harbour with a compass, a crew, and an ambitious but clear destination. Today, it has crossed difficult publishing waters, gained visibility, opened access to the world, and entered a new editorial era. Its task now is to remain a safe anchorage for evidence and a compass for the next generation of surgeons, physicians, therapists, researchers, and patients served by ISAKOS.