Since the BMJ set up its editorial advisory board in 1997, a rolling cast of medicine’s finest has been on hand to support and challenge the journal (http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/about-bmj/editorial-advisory-board). Each year when we gather in London for the annual meeting, as we did last week, the personalities, expertise, and advice are subtly different. This year for the first time, the meeting included editors in chief of the BMJ’s 26 sister journals (http://group.bmj.com/products/journals), bringing not only knowledge of their own discipline but an instinct for what journals can and can’t do.

The discussion was as inspiring and wide ranging as ever: the global …