European Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 41, pp. 3–4, 2015
doi:10.1111/ejn.12815
EDITORIAL Taking up the reigns John Foxe1 and Paul Bolam2 1 2
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY, USA University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Paul Bolam John Foxe As of the first issue of 2015, Martin Sarter (University of Michigan) and Jean-Marc Fritschy (University of Zurich) will stand down as co-Editors-in-Chief of the European Journal of Neuroscience. They have been at the helm for 6 years, a period during which EJN has continued to grow and strengthen its position as a major venue for top-quality neuroscience research, despite an ever more competitive publishing environment. Jean-Marc and Martin have been extremely effective in navigating these turbulent times and have maintained and built upon EJN’s prominent position. We, together with the FENS committee and all stakeholders, thank them for their tireless efforts and outstanding service. Several of our Associate Editors, John Garthwaite, Richard Robitaille, Tomoki Fukai, Cyriel Pennartz, Esther Stockli, Zoltan Nusser and Peter Brown, have also reached the end of their terms and will cycle off the board. We take this opportunity to thank them for their hard work and continued support of the journal over the past years. We also thank the Managing Editor, Sophie Gavarini, who has done a remarkable job over the years dealing with Editors, reviewers and authors in a most helpful and constructive way, and has helped to bring EJN into the modern age by instituting major social media initiatives, a solid foundation upon which we intend to build further.
It is a daunting prospect to take over the editorship. We are both extremely passionate about EJN – a long-established international neuroscience journal. EJN falls under the auspices of FENS and hence is owned by all European scientists who are members of their national neuroscience societies. It is your journal and our responsibility is to you all. We aim to: Maintain the high scholarly standards of the journal; Maintain the highest of standards in peer-reviewing; Maintain and expand the high standards and international standing of the whole editorial board, Associate Editors and reviewers; Continue with the policy on ‘no page charges’; Continue with free access to the journal for all members of FENS and all members of the SFN. The journal will, in effect, continue to be virtually, or very close to, Open Access. As a consequence of the natural turnover of Associate Editors and slight change in the emphasis of the journal, we are inviting energetic and committed scientists with high international reputation and visibility to join us on the board. At the time of writing we have invited: Yoland Smith from Emory University who has expertise in the field of basal ganglia research, employing anatomical and electrophysiological approaches in both rodents and primates.
Correspondence: John Foxe and Paul Bolam, as above. E-mails: [email protected] and [email protected]
© 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
4 Editorial Jochen Roeper from Frankfurt University whose work concentrates on the study of dopamine neurons using a multiplicity of approaches. Panayiota Poirazi, a computational neurobiologist who serves as Research Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology at the Foundation for Research & Technology-Hellas in Crete. Christos Pantelis, whose work focuses on brain structural and functional changes during the transition to psychosis, and is Foundation Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Scientific Director of the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre at the University of Melbourne. Guillaume Rousselet, a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow, whose research focuses on the rapid neural dynamics of visual processing of objects, faces and natural scenes. He is also well known for his rigorous methodological approaches in human electrophysiology. Christoph Michel, the current President of the Swiss Society for Neuroscience and Professor of Neuroscience at The University of Geneva, whose work uses integrated electrophysiological and neuroimaging approaches to investigate perceptual and cognitive functions in human patients, with a special concentration in epilepsy. Sophie Molholm, the Muriel and Harriet Block Faculty Chair in Neuroscience and Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who employs imaging and EEG approaches to investigate the neuropathology of neurodevelopmental disorders with a special concentration on the autism spectrum. Rui Costa from the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal. His group studies the role of cortico-basal ganglia circuits in action selection and generation, and in how new skills are acquired. Jean Decety is Irving B. Harris Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago where he also directs the Brain Imaging Center. His work investigates the neural bases of social function, including empathy, affective processes, moral judgment and more general decision-making processes. At the time of writing we are also reviewing our list of Scientific Review Associates. This group of scientists represent a critical layer in the editorial process of a journal, and indeed the peer-reviewing that they do is one of the foundation stones of the scientific method. We welcome the new Associate Editors and Scientific Review Associates and look forward to working with them. The world of scientific publishing in general faces many challenges in this digital age, not least from the ‘online’ journals and the online ‘sisters’ of the established journals. A day hardly passes without emails requesting us to review for this or that new online journal and a week doesn’t go by without emails announcing the founding of new online journals. These challenges must be met, so in addition to increasing the exposure of EJN at national and international meetings and increasing directed communication with the neuroscience community, we plan to make a series of changes to the organization and content of the journal and changes to ‘author experience’ to take these challenges head-on. Regarding organization and content of the journal, we are planning the following changes:
Continued and increased emphasis on special issues. In addition to those in process under the current Editors we already have several special issues lined up. We welcome suggestions for special issues and are particularly interested in proposals that are associated with scientific meetings or symposia. Continued and increased emphasis on reviews. We are currently in discussion with several people to write reviews on critical issues in neuroscience. Again, if you have proposals for reviews or ideas that could be taken forward please contact us. Introduction of Rapid Publications. For high-profile papers on hot topics proposed by the author(s) or identified by the Editors, we will establish a fast-track reviewing process that could give you an answer in a matter of days. We envisage that this will encourage the submission of your very best papers. Over the coming months we will be reviewing the design of the front cover and the ‘image’ of the journal. Regarding author experience, we are planning the following: ‘Your paper your way’. To get over the long and complicated process of ‘online submission’ we will accept for review papers prepared by the authors in PDF format. The PDF should include essential information but need not necessarily be in the precise format for EJN. Only after acceptance of the paper will the author need to upload individual files in EJN format. We will eliminate all word-length restrictions. It is our position that you should write your paper to communicate the work as effectively as possible and that while this often calls for short terse introductions and streamlined discussion sections, there are many occasions where shoe-horning the work into a 500word introduction does a disservice to the work. Many relatively complex ideas simply cannot be realistically communicated under these restraints and this leads to confusion and frustration on the part of both authors and reviewers. Revised and simplified ‘Instructions to Authors’. As soon as an article is accepted it will be published online in PDF format. The type-set, ‘printed’ version will follow rapidly. Associate Editors who have dealt with each article will be identified in the published version. To increase the visibility of accepted articles, authors will be asked to identify 10–20 ‘key players’ in the field. The Editors will then personally send PDFs of the paper to these individuals alerting them to your newly published work. We will continue to publicize featured articles on the EJN website and in FENS communications. Finally, this is your journal – please support us in maintaining its high quality and profile by submitting your best papers. We need to take the journal to the next level and we need the help of the three academic stakeholders: readers, authors and reviewers. We look forward to interacting with the international neuroscience research community in taking EJN forward.
Acknowledgements Thanks to Agnieszka Swiejkowska and Lucas Black for the photographs in the two editorials.
© 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd European Journal of Neuroscience, 41, 3–4
Copyright of European Journal of Neuroscience is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
doi:10.1111/ejn.12815
EDITORIAL Taking up the reigns John Foxe1 and Paul Bolam2 1 2
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY, USA University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Paul Bolam John Foxe As of the first issue of 2015, Martin Sarter (University of Michigan) and Jean-Marc Fritschy (University of Zurich) will stand down as co-Editors-in-Chief of the European Journal of Neuroscience. They have been at the helm for 6 years, a period during which EJN has continued to grow and strengthen its position as a major venue for top-quality neuroscience research, despite an ever more competitive publishing environment. Jean-Marc and Martin have been extremely effective in navigating these turbulent times and have maintained and built upon EJN’s prominent position. We, together with the FENS committee and all stakeholders, thank them for their tireless efforts and outstanding service. Several of our Associate Editors, John Garthwaite, Richard Robitaille, Tomoki Fukai, Cyriel Pennartz, Esther Stockli, Zoltan Nusser and Peter Brown, have also reached the end of their terms and will cycle off the board. We take this opportunity to thank them for their hard work and continued support of the journal over the past years. We also thank the Managing Editor, Sophie Gavarini, who has done a remarkable job over the years dealing with Editors, reviewers and authors in a most helpful and constructive way, and has helped to bring EJN into the modern age by instituting major social media initiatives, a solid foundation upon which we intend to build further.
It is a daunting prospect to take over the editorship. We are both extremely passionate about EJN – a long-established international neuroscience journal. EJN falls under the auspices of FENS and hence is owned by all European scientists who are members of their national neuroscience societies. It is your journal and our responsibility is to you all. We aim to: Maintain the high scholarly standards of the journal; Maintain the highest of standards in peer-reviewing; Maintain and expand the high standards and international standing of the whole editorial board, Associate Editors and reviewers; Continue with the policy on ‘no page charges’; Continue with free access to the journal for all members of FENS and all members of the SFN. The journal will, in effect, continue to be virtually, or very close to, Open Access. As a consequence of the natural turnover of Associate Editors and slight change in the emphasis of the journal, we are inviting energetic and committed scientists with high international reputation and visibility to join us on the board. At the time of writing we have invited: Yoland Smith from Emory University who has expertise in the field of basal ganglia research, employing anatomical and electrophysiological approaches in both rodents and primates.
Correspondence: John Foxe and Paul Bolam, as above. E-mails: [email protected] and [email protected]
© 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
4 Editorial Jochen Roeper from Frankfurt University whose work concentrates on the study of dopamine neurons using a multiplicity of approaches. Panayiota Poirazi, a computational neurobiologist who serves as Research Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology at the Foundation for Research & Technology-Hellas in Crete. Christos Pantelis, whose work focuses on brain structural and functional changes during the transition to psychosis, and is Foundation Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Scientific Director of the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre at the University of Melbourne. Guillaume Rousselet, a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow, whose research focuses on the rapid neural dynamics of visual processing of objects, faces and natural scenes. He is also well known for his rigorous methodological approaches in human electrophysiology. Christoph Michel, the current President of the Swiss Society for Neuroscience and Professor of Neuroscience at The University of Geneva, whose work uses integrated electrophysiological and neuroimaging approaches to investigate perceptual and cognitive functions in human patients, with a special concentration in epilepsy. Sophie Molholm, the Muriel and Harriet Block Faculty Chair in Neuroscience and Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who employs imaging and EEG approaches to investigate the neuropathology of neurodevelopmental disorders with a special concentration on the autism spectrum. Rui Costa from the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal. His group studies the role of cortico-basal ganglia circuits in action selection and generation, and in how new skills are acquired. Jean Decety is Irving B. Harris Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago where he also directs the Brain Imaging Center. His work investigates the neural bases of social function, including empathy, affective processes, moral judgment and more general decision-making processes. At the time of writing we are also reviewing our list of Scientific Review Associates. This group of scientists represent a critical layer in the editorial process of a journal, and indeed the peer-reviewing that they do is one of the foundation stones of the scientific method. We welcome the new Associate Editors and Scientific Review Associates and look forward to working with them. The world of scientific publishing in general faces many challenges in this digital age, not least from the ‘online’ journals and the online ‘sisters’ of the established journals. A day hardly passes without emails requesting us to review for this or that new online journal and a week doesn’t go by without emails announcing the founding of new online journals. These challenges must be met, so in addition to increasing the exposure of EJN at national and international meetings and increasing directed communication with the neuroscience community, we plan to make a series of changes to the organization and content of the journal and changes to ‘author experience’ to take these challenges head-on. Regarding organization and content of the journal, we are planning the following changes:
Continued and increased emphasis on special issues. In addition to those in process under the current Editors we already have several special issues lined up. We welcome suggestions for special issues and are particularly interested in proposals that are associated with scientific meetings or symposia. Continued and increased emphasis on reviews. We are currently in discussion with several people to write reviews on critical issues in neuroscience. Again, if you have proposals for reviews or ideas that could be taken forward please contact us. Introduction of Rapid Publications. For high-profile papers on hot topics proposed by the author(s) or identified by the Editors, we will establish a fast-track reviewing process that could give you an answer in a matter of days. We envisage that this will encourage the submission of your very best papers. Over the coming months we will be reviewing the design of the front cover and the ‘image’ of the journal. Regarding author experience, we are planning the following: ‘Your paper your way’. To get over the long and complicated process of ‘online submission’ we will accept for review papers prepared by the authors in PDF format. The PDF should include essential information but need not necessarily be in the precise format for EJN. Only after acceptance of the paper will the author need to upload individual files in EJN format. We will eliminate all word-length restrictions. It is our position that you should write your paper to communicate the work as effectively as possible and that while this often calls for short terse introductions and streamlined discussion sections, there are many occasions where shoe-horning the work into a 500word introduction does a disservice to the work. Many relatively complex ideas simply cannot be realistically communicated under these restraints and this leads to confusion and frustration on the part of both authors and reviewers. Revised and simplified ‘Instructions to Authors’. As soon as an article is accepted it will be published online in PDF format. The type-set, ‘printed’ version will follow rapidly. Associate Editors who have dealt with each article will be identified in the published version. To increase the visibility of accepted articles, authors will be asked to identify 10–20 ‘key players’ in the field. The Editors will then personally send PDFs of the paper to these individuals alerting them to your newly published work. We will continue to publicize featured articles on the EJN website and in FENS communications. Finally, this is your journal – please support us in maintaining its high quality and profile by submitting your best papers. We need to take the journal to the next level and we need the help of the three academic stakeholders: readers, authors and reviewers. We look forward to interacting with the international neuroscience research community in taking EJN forward.
Acknowledgements Thanks to Agnieszka Swiejkowska and Lucas Black for the photographs in the two editorials.
© 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd European Journal of Neuroscience, 41, 3–4
Copyright of European Journal of Neuroscience is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
