The International Journal of Radiation Biology (IJRB) has just completed 50 very successful years. This year marks the first year of the next half century which we hope will be even more successful although undoubtedly very different from the first 50. Looking forward it seems unlikely that there will still be a classically printed version in 2059. Whatever the format, however, there will still be a need to report research activities in radiation biology and there will be a need for vigorous peer review of research findings. As you are all aware during our 50th Anniversary year, we have published a series of special reviews which we hope you have found useful and informative. A number of the reviews that we solicited did not make it into the Journal last year but they will appear in the coming year. All reviews in the Journal are solicited but as editors we are open to your suggestions for timely reviews. During our 50th Anniversary year the number of submissions to IJRB has continued to rise and, as with the first year of the Journal in 1959, the origin of the submissions retains a very international nature. In 2008, the most recent year for which we have a complete record at the time of writing, there were over 275 manuscripts submitted from 38 different countries. Our current acceptance rate is about 45%. We would like to express our thanks both to our authors and to our exceptional core of reviewers (over 400), whose careful reviewing, and editing of articles from authors whose first language is not English, has made the jobs of the editors much easier. A list of our reviewers will be published in a subsequent issue of IJRB.
During the past year we have restructured the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Radiation Biology and added a number of new members. Most of the articles published in IJRB are reviewed by at least one of our Editorial Board members and we would like to thank all the Board members for their commitment to the Journal. We welcome the new members to the Board and look forward to working with them. You will no doubt have noticed one of the new initiatives for this year, namely the retention of the original light blue cover that we introduced for the 50th Anniversary year and the addition of a space on the front cover for a selected figure from one of the articles in the issue. Another new initiative will be the introduction of brief communications which we expect to review rapidly. We invite you to submit your recent findings in this format. As editors we are committed to continued improvements in the International Journal of Radiation Biology to make it more useful to our readers while maintaining high standards. We welcome your suggestions.