Dear EMWA members,

The winter edition of Medical Writing is now available. 
We are happy to bring you this issue on Open Science and Open Pharma.

Open access ensures that the highest quality, peer-reviewed evidence is available to anyone who needs it, anywhere in the world. This issue focuses on how Open Science and Open Pharma improve transparency, advance medical science, and ultimately improve patient care. 

Thank you to Tanya Stezhka, Chris Winchester, and Martin Delahunty for putting together this issue, EMWA’s small contribution to the open access initiative.

Also in this issue, we share the results of the 2021 EMWA compensation survey. A big round of applause to the EMWA salary and compensation Survey team!

In 2023, we have exciting themes coming up:

March 2023: Clinical Trials
Medical writers and communicators are involved in clinical trials, from writing the trial protocol to reporting and publishing the trial results. This issue of MEW will focus on our roles, responsibilities, the documents we create, and our audience. Furthermore, we will also cover the regulations and best working practices governing documentations for clinical trials. This issue is now closed for submission.

Guest Editors: Ivana Turek and Raquel Billiones

June 2023: Freelancing
Freelancing is becoming an increasingly popular option for medical writers and communicators, but it's not as straight forward as finding a few clients and getting paid. There's so much more involved. Freelancers are mini business owners and to be successful, you need a plethora of skills, be self-motivated, driven, and adaptable and take the highs with the lows. In this issue, the authors will discuss what options are out there for freelancers, how to get started, and all the challenges that you may come across. Freelancing can be a lucrative business but addressing all the factors is key to being successful. The deadline for feature articles is March 1, 2023.

Guest Editors: Laura Kehoe and Satyen Shenoy

September 2023: Automation
Streamlined complex medical report writing supported by artificial intelligence/machine learning is making its way into clinical regulatory writing. The medical writing automation’s goal is to speed up and ease clinical development processes by reducing the time and cost involved in creating and keeping regulatory documents up to date. This issue will examine current issues, challenges, and opportunities towards human guided medical writing automation systems. The deadline for feature articles is June 1, 2023.

Guest Editors: Shiri Diskin and Daniela Kamir

Take note of our paperless option

Our journal is fully open access electronically and can be read online or downloaded as pdf. If you want to explore the green paperless MEW experience, you can opt out of receiving the paper copy of the journal in your EMWA profile under “Preferences.”

Finally, if you have any ideas for topics and themes for future issues, let us know!

Wishing you the best for 2023.

Raquel Billiones
Editor-in-Chief, Medical Writing