When Terry Williams and I became Joint-Editors in September 2001 we moved away from a tradition of sole editors that had continued since the 1960s. We think that the new model has worked well as it has allowed us to share the workload and to share ideas for the journal. We also felt prior to commencing that it would be hard for one individual to do a good job as editor while under increasing pressure from our ‘regular’ jobs in institutions. This view turned out to be very fortunate because soon after taking on the roles we experienced a rapid rise in the number of papers being submitted to the journal. A sole editor would have found it hard to cope with the workload.
Now we have reached the point where we are planning our exit to make way for a new team. Terry is stepping down now and I will follow later next year. In our place we welcome two new Joint-Editors, Professors Tom Archibald and Jonathan Crook, both from the University of Edinburgh. Currently, Tom and Jonathan are dealing with all new papers and I am continuing to deal with all papers submitted prior to January 2010. The principal reason for this time-based division in labour is that in January JORS gained a new manuscript handling system and we are trying to avoid the need for in-process papers to be moved from the old manuscript system to the new one. We also hope that authors and referees will find advantages in the future with the new manuscript system.
In addition to welcoming new Joint-Editors to the team, we also welcome three more new faces. Professor Graham Kendall, University of Nottingham, has joined as an Associate Editor and will be taking particular responsibility for overseeing papers involving scheduling and timetabling. Professor Mike Pidd, University of Lancaster, is also joining as an Associate Editor and he will mainly be responsible for papers involving systems, including soft systems. The special expertise of these two deputies adds strength to the editorial team. The third change is that Professor Uwe Aickelin is stepping down as Assistant Editor handling book reviews. In his place we welcome Dr Jim Chilcott from the University of Sheffield. Uwe has diligently handled book reviews for over 7 years and we express our thanks to him. He has managed to combine his role of Associate Editor while his professional workload has grown rapidly, so we are pleased that he has been able to give the JORS tasks a long period of continuity. We are also pleased to note that Dr Aris Syntetos will continue as Assistant Editor responsible for Viewpoints.
At this point, it is appropriate to pay personal tribute to my Co-Editor Terry Williams. Although we operated by carving up JORS tasks between us, we have always worked as a team and tried to maintain a joint view about policy matters. I have found it immensely reassuring to know that because Terry was 100% reliable, everything he said he would do was indeed done, and always in a timely and thorough way. It was also particularly helpful that on several occasions, when I was delayed by health issues from completing some tasks, Terry stepped in and took on extra workload. His ‘no nonsense’ attitude to making decisions has been helpful for JORS and his crusade to encourage high-quality papers describing OR practice has maintained high standards of publications. This has been particularly important when year-on-year more papers are being submitted to JORS. Because OR is a multidisciplinary approach it makes use of, among others, economics, computer science, optimisation, operations management and statistics. The borderline between OR and these other disciplines is fuzzy, but it has been important to distinguish between papers that fit with JORS and papers that are more appropriate for a journal in one of these overlapping disciplines. Terry has always had a clear vision of what OR is and of what is not OR, and this has contributed to his skill as Joint-Editor of JORS and made him a good sounding board for another Joint-Editor working with him. On behalf of the OR Society, our publisher Palgrave, authors and referees and the readership of JORS I thank him warmly and wish him well for the future.