© 2004 by ICES/CIEM International Council for the Exploration of the Sea/Conseil International pour l'Exploration de la Mer
Editorial |
The next few years of the ICES Journal of Marine Science
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*Correspondence to A. I. L. Payne: tel: +44 1502 524 344. e-mail: a.i.l.payne{at}lineone.net.
This issue marks a change in the editorial team of the ICES Journal of Marine Science, in that we have bid farewell to our former Editor-in-Chief, Niels Daan, after six years of sterling service, and to our Elsevier Publishing Editor, Andrew Richford, after an even longer period of years. Both deserve credit for their energy and vision that has left us the legacy of a journal as widely read and cited as the ICES Journal now is, but they leave a gap that will be a huge challenge for us to meet. However, in my new capacity as Editor-in-Chief and in Els Bosma's capacity as Elsevier's Publishing Editor, I can assure you that we will be doing our utmost to build on the solid foundations Niels and Andrew laid for us.
The new team of editors and editorial support staff at ICES is indeed not that much different from the team that compiled the last issue, in that Chris Frid, Bern Megrey, Pierre Pepin, and the long-serving John Ramster will continue to carry the editorial flag for the Journal, as they did so unstintingly in the past. Judith Rosenmeier and Søren Lund still support us at the ICES office itself. However, we do have a new editor, I am pleased to announce, Verena Trenkel of IFREMER, France, and she brings additional skills and enthusiasm which I know will rub off on us all. Verena, we welcome you to the team, but to all of our employers, we offer our gratitude for their support of our editorial endeavour.
So what are our targets, and what is our vision for the future of the Journal? I doubt that there is need to change broadly what we publish, or how we go about attracting good material. Why change a winning formula? However, I do believe that we should be open to requests to publish suites of related papers such as those delivered during some of the Annual Science Conference theme sessions. With Elsevier now committed to publishing six standard issues per year in addition to symposium volumes (in the past, the latter sometimes delayed publication of standard issues), such suites can be more easily accommodated, although those interested in invoking this possibility must understand that the speed of the slowest contributor tends to become the key factor. Overcoming that obstacle will be one of the challenges facing future conveners and editors. There may also be a case for such suites to contain the occasional short review paper, something that the Journal tends to avoid publishing at present.
ICES has committed itself to publishing through the Elsevier stable for at least a few more years, and Elsevier is encouraging the Journal to adopt its house electronic, on-line, mode of submission, review, revision, and ultimately publication (Editorial Manager). Certainly, the present Elsevier on-line system is neat and could shave significant time off the publication process (if authors don't delay it!), but it also allows authors and editors the facility of being able to track exactly where (though not with whom, for obvious reasons) the process is at any point in time. If we adopt this system, and we are investigating it currently, we will need to construct an extensive database of potential reviewers and also ensure that we can download the material from the web, work on it, and upload it again. Elsevier promise the latter facility for authors and editors, some of whom do their editing sitting at airports and stations or travelling on public transport!
During Niels' tenure as Editor-in-Chief, he targeted broader scientific disciplines than had traditionally been the case, and also looked to the academic community for greater support. Recent statistics show that in both objectives he was successful, so we need to build on them further, making the ICES Journal the publishing medium of choice for scientists throughout the ICES (North American and European) community. However, some of the 19 Member Countries and six Affiliate Countries of ICES do not feature highly in the annual lists of manuscripts published. Therefore, I would like my fellow editors to join me in not only soliciting manuscripts from some of those countries, along with other countries in other parts of the world, but also in giving some assistance to their young scientists to produce quality (content and language) published material to launch and sustain their scientific careers. After all, those young scientists will be among the top scientists of the future.
We believe that our Journal deserves its current high ranking among the best marine and freshwater scientific journals of the world. Our mission will therefore remain that of attracting contributions worthy of publishing from across the whole spectrum of marine science and steering them through to publication within as short a time frame as possible. Elsevier's on-line publishing system and extensive and aggressive marketing will help us maintain and even improve on our current ranking, but nothing will be achieved without the continuing support of our talented authors and the willing input of the review corps on whom we rely so much.
I have in the past publicly referred to an editor's task as "thankless", meaning that it can be hard labour for which one rarely receives gratitude. However, the positive feedback I occasionally receive from authors and reviewers, and the pleasure on the day of release of a new issue into which I have put a lot of effort, does make the task worthwhile. Personally too, I have been able to maintain a link with some authors whose work I have edited and many of the reviewers who have helped support me. Nonetheless, finding willing reviewers remains one of an editor's most difficult tasks, so if there is a single concluding message that I wish to send to users of the ICES Journal of Marine Science, it is that standards can only be maintained by scientists offering their assistance in reviewing, a task that has likely helped improve the quality of their own publications in the past.
In his editorial to the previous issue, Niels spoke of how his self-esteem dived when he discovered his was the only application for the post of Editor-in-Chief in 1997. In my case, I have no idea who were my competitors for the post, but I can certainly say that I am honoured to be permitted to follow in his footsteps and of those who preceded him. I now invite you to join me in keeping the ICES Journal of Marine Science at the forefront of marine scientific publishing into the 21st century. The Journal's centenary is just 22 years away!
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