Just a few months after a very successful and well attended joint IUGA/EUGA meeting and approaching the end of the year, the Editors in Chief of the IUJ would like to address a few issues for our readers.

The IUJ is one of IUGAs most valuable assets, and we are delighted that the usage of the IUJ has further increased. We received 14% more manuscripts, though we have not reached the outstanding high number of submissions in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our acceptance rate currently is 31%. Readers seem particularly interested in Reviews and Special contributions. Interestingly, our readers have become more critical and submit more letters to the Editor usually asking for more information and further discussion on published papers. We appreciate this communication as it enhances scientific debates. However, we are also aware that AI has made it much easier to write such letters, especially for non-native English readers.

The impact factor of the IUJ in 2025 is still 1.8, but the most exciting news this year was that we are now placed in quartile 2 in both Obstetrics and Gynecology as well as Urology categories as this is a very important issue for academic researchers.

There have been approximately 30% more monthly downloads in 2025. Our newest evaluations show that the article by Zhang et al. “Global Prevalence of Overactive Bladder: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis” (Int Urogynecol J, Zhang et al., 2025; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-024-06029-2) has been the most downloaded AND also the most cited in 2025 so far. This systematic review is truly of international interest: it estimates the global prevalence of overactive bladder (OAB) and explores it by age, sex, BMI, region, and over time. It demonstrates that OAB is a global burden, especially for women aged over 60 years and being overweight/obese, although there are regional differences suggesting that socioeconomic, cultural, lifestyle, and possibly genetic factors also play a role. Furthermore, OAB prevalences increased over time from 18% in 2000–2005 to 24% in 2021–2024. This might be because of aging populations and high obesity rates but also because there is more training in urogynecology and greater awareness and diagnosis. This paper highlights the missions of the IUJ and IUGA: increasing awareness and improving pelvic floor health globally, advancing terminology and standardization of patient-related outcome measures as well as education of health care providers and patients.

Tables 1 and 2 depict the top 10 most cited and most downloaded articles in 2025 until the end of October. Congratulations to all authors in these lists! Notable is the high number of papers published open access. Clearly, this makes them more accessible, and it is a goal to further increase the open access articles. On the other side, there are highly cited and downloaded manuscripts that required payment or subscription. Although most of the open access papers are funded by transformative agreements between the publisher and the authors’ institution, it remains the aim of the IUJ to allow all authors to publish in the IUJ. Scientific merit and impact to improve pelvic floor health are paramount; therefore, we want to ensure that authors from resource-limited settings are not excluded.

During the IUGA annual meeting we honored the most impactful paper contributing to the 2023 impact factor. Traditionally, this paper wins the Oscar Contreras Ortiz Award which was first awarded in 2018 to honor the memory and legacy of Oscar Contreras Ortiz, a co-founder of the International Urogynecology Journal. The winners were Heidi F. A. Moossdorff-Steinhauser, Bary C. M. Berghmans, Marc E. A. Spaanderman & Esther M. J. Bols - for their paper on “Prevalence, incidence and bothersomeness of urinary incontinence in pregnancy: a systematic review and meta-analysis” (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-020-04636-3). Congratulations again!

At the IUGA meeting, we also celebrated our most dedicated Editorial board reviewers (Fig. 1). The top 10 reviewers are Cara L Grimes, Hamdy Ahmed Saaid Abdalhady, Markus Huebner, M.I.A. Wyndaele, Ian Vasicka, Cornelia Betschart, Christopher X Hong, Michelle Morrill, Jittima Manonai, and C. Emi Bretschneider. The IUJs Editorial Board consists of a professional community including gynecologists, urologists, and physiotherapists from many different countries and in different stages of their career. Professional and geographic diversity strengthens the relevance of the IUJ, and we also encourage early-career researchers and fellows to register as reviewers to further enhance knowledge distribution and impact of IUGA and the IUJ. We wholeheartedly thank all our reviewers for their time and professional input!

Editorial board reviewers

In conclusion, 2025 has been a very good year for the International Urogynecology Journal. We have expanded our reach and visibility, published scientifically and clinically exciting articles of great relevance. Still, we face a number of challenges with AI, global health inequalities, and transforming technologies, on one hand, and changing realities and priorities in our readers and authors, on the other hand. As so often, all this presents a challenge and an opportunity at the same time. We hope that together with our multidisciplinary, international Editors, editorial board members, and reviewers, we can further elevate the field of urogynecology.

Thank you to authors, reviewers, readers, and the editorial team for your commitment. We look forward to continuing this journey together.