Sitting on the editorial fence

One of the major challenges in being Editor-in-Chief is keeping all the balls in the air at the same time. We have a steady supply of new manuscripts arriving each month, many in the process of being reviewed, and then a smaller number of accepted manuscripts which sometimes require detailed editing and then ultimately typesetting before appearing on-line. Whilst the whole process can be achieved in a matter of weeks, on other occasions it takes much longer.

There have been occasions over the last few years when our speed of publication (from submission to publication on-line) has been less than ideal. Therefore, as I mentioned in my last Editorial (Pacey, 2017), over the past few months we have been overhauling our manuscript processing system and putting some improvements in place. Part of this has involved utilising better talents and expertise of our four sub-editors. I am pleased to say that this process is now complete and authors should start to see quicker and more timely decisions on manuscripts being made. This may on occasions mean that sub-editors may make the decision to accept immediately an excellent manuscript (or reject a poor one) without necessarily relying on help from peer reviewers. This will speed things up enormously for everyone else.

So, what does this mean for the role of Editor-in-Chief? Is my job now redundant? Far from it. Rest assured, I will not be spending my time sitting on the editorial fence and watching the editorial process go by. Rather, we need to innovate further and take the journal into the next phase of its life. Comments from readers and subscribers on how we do this are always welcome.