This post is part of the “Celebrating Five Years of the Discover Journals” series, highlighting Discover journals and the people who have played a key role in shaping their development. The series aims to spotlight the leadership, values, and vibrant communities behind the journals.
Discover Mental Health, launched in 2021, is an open access journal publishing across the transdisciplinary fields of mental health, including theoretical and fundamental sciences, clinical sciences, public health, and socioeconomic, biological and environmental factors.
- Indexed in DOAJ, ESCI with a Journal Impact Factor of 2.2 (2025), PubMedCentral and Scopus with a CiteScore 2025 of 2.2.
- Covering theoretical and fundamental sciences, clinical sciences and public health research.
- A journal in Springer Nature’s Discover Series: Rigorous, representative and wide-reaching.
As we celebrate five years of the journal, we are delighted to share insights from the Editor-in-Chief: Ma-Li Wong.
Why did you join Discover?
What drew me to Discover Mental Health was the vision behind the series itself: broad-scope, community-driven, and genuinely open. Mental health research sits at the intersection of so many disciplines, and I wanted to help shape a home where that breadth could be celebrated.
What has changed over the past few years?
The journal has grown from a new publication into an established, globally indexed title, and the field around it has shifted just as much. Digital mental health, precision psychiatry, and the interfaces between mental health and neurology, immunology, and public health have moved from the periphery to the center of the conversation, and it has been rewarding to see Discover Mental Health grow alongside these developments.
Looking ahead and aspirations for the next five years.
I hope to see the journal continue broadening its reach into interdisciplinary and translational work, and to become a place where early-career researchers and colleagues from underrepresented regions feel genuinely at home. Ultimately, I'd like the research we publish to move more quickly from page to practice, benefiting the people and communities who need it most.
Someone from the Discover community who has particularly impressed me?
Dr. Julio Licinio, the founding Editor-in-Chief, deserves enormous credit. He built the journal from the ground up with care, vision, and an unwavering commitment to quality, securing indexation in the major databases and assembling a remarkable team of section editors. Inheriting a journal in such good shape has been a real gift.
Please stay tuned for more posts from our anniversary celebrations!