International Journal of Pain has been the official journal of Korean Pain Research Society since 1991 and Korean Pain Intervention Society since 2023, contributing to the dissemination of novel, useful, and interesting scientific work related to pain across South Korea [1,2]. With its selection as a candidate for listing in the Korea Citation Index (KCI) in 2023, the International Journal of Pain has been recognized for its academic value as a representative specialist pain journal of South Korea. In 2025, the journal will be re-assessed by the National Research Foundation of Korea, and if it passes, it will become a KCI journal.

Our mission of the journal is to improve the care of patients in pain by providing a forum for basic scientists, clinical researchers, clinicians, and other health professionals. As our mission suggests, by publishing the results of studies by experts in all pain-related fields, the purpose of the International Journal of Pain is to broaden our understanding and knowledge of the mechanisms, diagnosis, and treatment of pain, and ultimately to improve the level of management for pain patients, and to improve therapeutic outcomes. To achieve our journal’s mission, the editors and editorial board members have worked hard to publish papers on various pain-related topics. Meanwhile, the readers have been actively engaging in discussion of the published papers through letters to the editor [3-6]. Since 2023, papers have been published online to improve visibility, and the design and structure of the online website have been newly improved to make it easier for readers to view the papers. We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who has worked towards the growth of the journal.

Our vision is to create a world-class forum for experts from various pain-related fields not only in South Korea, but throughout the world, to publish, share, and discuss research findings and knowledge in the International Journal of Pain. This vision is reflected in the first word in our journal’s title - “International”.

We are pursuing the following strategies to achieve our mission and vision. First, we are working to publish high quality texts from various pain-related fields. To this end, we will invite pain experts from different fields to submit papers. Many prestigious pain experts have already joined the editorial board of the International Journal of Pain. We plan to actively make use of this situation by asking these experts to submit papers.

Second, we are making preparations to ensure there will be no issues with the evaluation for the KCI listing in 2 years. Getting listed in the KCI is the first step in getting official recognition of our journal’s academic value. At most universities and institutions in South Korea, articles published in journals listed in the KCI provide authors with significant recognition as part of performance evaluation for employment and promotion. The KCI listing is an essential condition to overcome a shortage of submissions.

Third, we will work to get our journal listed in PubMed. PubMed is the most representative electronic database of the titles and abstracts of biomedical and life science research articles produced by the National Library of Medicine in Washington [7]. Moreover, the number of papers by a given researcher in PubMed is one of the most simply and easy methods used to evaluate a researcher’s academic activity and achievements. Therefore, having the International Journal of Pain listed in PubMed will lead researchers from various countries to submit their papers to our journal. Later, we will also need to get our journal listed in SCOPUS and Web of Science, to encourage skilled researchers from across the world to choose our journal to publish their papers.

Always keeping in mind our mission and vision and the International Journal of Pain, we will continue diligently moving forwards, step-by-step, to achieve our goals.

None.

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.