Scholarly journals represent an act of stewardship. They embody a discipline’s collective commitment to intellectual rigour, ethical practice and the responsible curation of knowledge over time. For professional societies, a journal is not merely a publishing outlet but a visible expression of academic leadership and intent. As the official journal of the South African Society of Anaesthesiologists (SASA), the Southern African Journal of Anaesthesia and Analgesia (SAJAA) has long fulfilled this role, anchoring national scholarship while increasingly projecting South African and African anaesthesiology into the global academic arena.¹

From 2026, SAJAA will enter a new phase with its transition to AOSIS as publisher. This moment represents not a break with the journal’s past, but a deliberate and strategic step towards strengthening its future academic reach, resilience, and visibility. It builds on the solid foundations established under previous publishing stewardship, which played a formative role in the journal’s development and growth.

There is growing international recognition that society-owned journals function as critical academic infrastructure. Unlike purely commercially driven publishing models, society journals are uniquely positioned to align editorial priorities with the needs of their disciplines, their trainees and the health systems within which they operate. This model allows value to be reinvested into scholarship, education and research capacity.^1,2,3 Such journals also play an essential role in supporting locally relevant research agendas that may otherwise be under-represented in global publishing markets.³

Southern African Journal of Anaesthesia and Analgesia has historically played this role for anaesthesiology in southern Africa. It has provided a forum for professional reflection, practice-relevant research and scholarly discourse grounded in the realities of our healthcare context. The decision to transition to AOSIS should therefore be understood as an intentional effort to strengthen this function, ensuring that the journal’s scholarly contribution is supported by publishing infrastructure capable of sustaining international standards and long-term growth.

AOSIS has established itself as a leading open-access academic publisher on the African continent, with a strong track record in supporting journals that meet international expectations for governance, peer review and publication ethics. Its publishing framework aligns closely with contemporary best practice in scholarly communication, including transparency of editorial processes, adherence to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) principles and digital systems that enhance discoverability and citation.^4,5 For SAJAA, this partnership offers more than operational support; it enables professionalisation of editorial workflows, improved metadata and indexing readiness and alignment with the technical and ethical benchmarks required for international bibliographic inclusion. Importantly, AOSIS brings experience in supporting journals along a structured pathway towards inclusion in major indexing platforms, including PubMed Central and, ultimately, MEDLINE.⁶

As anaesthesiology continues to evolve across Africa, there is an increasing responsibility to ensure that high-quality research from the continent is published through journals that both understand the local context and meet global scholarly standards. Strong regional journals are essential for developing early-career researchers, normalising academic practice and fostering disciplinary identity.^3,7 Southern African Journal of Anaesthesia and Analgesia is uniquely positioned to fulfil this role. Its scope, governance and society ownership allow it to act as a conduit between local relevance and international credibility. The transition to AOSIS therefore represents not only a benefit to SASA members but also a contribution to strengthening the broader ecosystem of African anaesthesiology scholarship, ensuring that research from our region is visible, citable and influential.

One of the next strategic objectives for SAJAA is inclusion in MEDLINE, with full integration into the PubMed discovery ecosystem. MEDLINE indexing represents a curated marker of scientific and editorial quality and remains the most internationally recognised indexing standard for biomedical journals.⁶ Achieving this milestone will require sustained editorial excellence, a consistent pipeline of high-quality submissions and active engagement from the anaesthesiology community as authors, reviewers and mentors. It will also require patience, rigour and continuity, which are hallmarks of journals that successfully transition from regional prominence to international recognition.

In the end, a journal is a promise, made by a community to itself, about the standards it will uphold and the knowledge it will build. With AOSIS as a publishing partner, SAJAA has the opportunity to be not only the voice of South African anaesthesiology but also a credible African platform that contributes meaningfully to global scholarship. If this structural step is matched by collective academic intent (submitting our best work, reviewing with care and mentoring new voices), then MEDLINE indexing and global visibility become milestones rather than aspirations. This is the essence of stewardship: to strengthen what has served us well and to leave behind a journal that allows the next generation of African anaesthesiologists to see their science reflected confidently on the world stage.