JICS is going digital
The Journal of the Intensive Care Society will be going digital in 2022
For two decades our members have received a printed copy of JICS four times a year. It’s an important membership benefit we offer, but we’ve decided it’s time to change how we deliver it. The November 2021 edition will be the final printed issue of our journal.
In 2019, following questions from our membership, we began to review how we could make our operations more sustainable. This had to be put on hold during the pandemic, so, taking JICS digital is one of the first big changes we’re making to reduce our environmental impact. Printing and delivering over 3000 copies of the Journal each quarter, including posting it to our international members, comes with a high environmental price, so it’s no longer the best choice for us.
Intensive Care Society Chief Executive, Dr Sandy Mather says “At our first Council meeting of 2021 it was agreed that reducing our environmental footprint would be a key priority for the Society, so moving away from printing JICS is an exciting step forward for us. We want to operate sustainably as an organisation, and help our specialty do the same, and this is just the beginning of the work we have ahead. We’ve been looking forward to sharing this news with everyone, and we hope all our members enjoy reading their brand new digital copies of JICS”.
We aren’t the only ones thinking about greener ways of operating, and as the NHS moves towards an environmentally sustainable future we want to do the same. We know many people love receiving JICS in the post each quarter, but we’re confident this move is the right one for us, our members, and the planet, and we’re excited to begin this transition.
Instead of printing and posting the Journal we’ll be producing a digital PDF flipbook for each edition, so you can read it just like you always have, but without the carbon footprint. You’ll get an email from us when it’s ready to download, and then you can read it on any device, whenever you like, no matter where you are.
The move won’t just save paper and ink, it will also allow us to publish more articles. In fact, each edition can now be twice as long. That means more of the content you’re interested in, and more opportunities to be published yourself.
JICS Editor in Chief, Prof Dan Martin, says “We’re glad this change also means we can publish a greater number of articles and provide more opportunities for contributors. There’s a lot of fascinating work happening in our specialty, and it will be excellent to be able to showcase even more of it”.
We’ve got quite a backlog of articles to waiting to be published, now that we’ll have more space, so the first issue of 2022 promises to be a great one.
We can’t wait for you to see this new version of our Journal, and we really hope you’ll love it, but we know it’s a big change. If you have any questions, or would like to get in touch, please contact us at communicationsteam@ics.ac.uk.
Find out more about our Sustainability Project here.
