In December I stepped down from my position as Senior Editor for the New Zealand Journal of Botany to allow more time for a senior administrative role at Victoria University. It has been a privilege and, for the most part, a tremendous pleasure to have served the Journal in this capacity over the past five years, although there have certainly been a few challenges along the way.
The partnership with Taylor & Francis has, I think, been a positive move for our botanical community; it has given us an efficient and streamlined process for online submission and peer review, as well as a substantially shorter turn-around between submission and publication.
It also provided the resources to promote the Journal overseas, which has proven to be a particularly useful counter-measure to the effects of the government’s funding scheme for universities, the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF). As a result of the PBRF, we received substantially fewer submissions from university academics and students, who, instead, faced mounting pressure to submit articles to the higher-ranking overseas journals.
However, thanks in part to the greater international exposure, our readership and submissions, particularly from South America, continue to increase, and our articles continue to be widely cited. The New Zealand Journal of Botany has retained its place as a substantive forum for publishing research into the flora of the southern hemisphere.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my team of associate editors for their support throughout the period of my tenure; their dedication and specialist knowledge has been invaluable. I am proud to have been a part of the Journal’s history, and I know that I am leaving the Journal in good hands.
Kevin S Gould
Senior Editor, 2014