This year completes my first year as Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Radiation Biology (IJRB). It was an exciting and steep learning curve and I am especially grateful to outgoing Editors Drs Michael Rauth and Richard Hill, who have been an enormous help in the transition and who I trust will continue to provide active advice in the coming year. Their sound advice has been essential in insuring the progress of the journal. I cannot imagine this year without Dianne Dixon, who has continued as Managing Editor of IJRB, providing a good transition and facilitating the management of papers within the journal; her hard work has been essential for the proper management of the journal.
The success of the journal depends upon the submission of top-notch papers from authors with the broad range of interests that focus around radiation biology. In the coming year, we hope to welcome original research papers, mini-reviews, topical reviews, and full reviews of areas of interest to the radiation biology community. These interests are wide and include almost everything that pertains to radiation – from overviews of team efforts to regulate policy to in vitro testing of radiosensitizers. If there is a question about a particular area of research less obviously connected with radiation, either as a topic of a paper or a focus for a special issue, the Editor-in-Chief should be contacted to be certain the work will fit into the interests of the journal.
One major change to the operations of the journal has been the movement of the publication of the journal from Informa to Taylor & Francis, a transition dictated by Informa’s returning the domain of all of their journals to the original publisher. This has led to some glitches and minor disruptions, but overall Taylor & Francis has been supportive of the journal and its work.
As Editor, I have made a few changes in the approach to the journal. We have added new Associate Editors and Advisory Board members to cover disciplines that fit more with the expanding interests of radiation biology today and have replaced a few members who have requested to be ‘retired’. In an effort to expand the journal beyond North America, new Associate Editors/Advisory Board members were invited from several European countries, Israel, China, and Japan. Some of the innovations that were initiated by the previous editors have been continued including the inclusion of cover images that feature a paper from the issue and free downloads for two papers from each issue.
Special issues of the journal had been initiated by the previous editors and this idea has been expanded over the past year. One special issue on the Auger symposium begun in 2015 was published in November 2016. Another special issue, organized by the RENEB (Realizing the European Network of Biodosimetry) group from the EU MELODI program was published in January with free downloads of the entire issue provided by RENEB. Another special issue devoted to low dose radiation studies will be published in memory of Dr William (Bill) Morgan, a good friend to the journal and supporter of radiation biology research over the years. This IJRB special issue will be available later in 2017; it will contain papers from a series of joint symposia held in honor of Bill from the 2016 meetings of the Radiation Research Society and Conference on Radiation Health (held in Hawaii) as well as additional papers submitted in Bill’s honor. Additional special issues are considered for the coming years 2017 and 2018. As the Editor-in-Chief, I am using this opportunity to encourage potential guest editors to contact me with suggestions for special issues devoted to a particular topic, a meeting, a workshop, or an area of focus. International efforts to study radiation and conferences focused around such efforts are numerous – IJRB could provide a platform to acquaint researchers across the world with each other.
At a meeting of the Advisory Board this year there was considerable discussion about approaches to decrease the review time of papers; several new procedures have been put into place that should speed-up this process without compromising the quality of the review process. It is anticipated that this will enhance submissions to IJRB.
I welcome your thoughts and ideas about ways to improve the journal.