Welcome to the first edition of 2005! As you’ll see we have a brand new cover, which I hope will be sufficiently eye-catching to attract new readers, and refreshing to those of you who have got used to the old version. This brief editorial is included to bring you up to date with changes in the journal over the last few years. The Editors and members of the Editorial Board will now change every 5 years, to allow the infusion of new ideas and expertise. I am grateful to all who have helped with the journal in these roles and in particular to Sarah Rowland-Jones and Danny Altmann, who stood down as Editors during 2004. Both have worked hard to improve the quality of the journal. I am also continually impressed and indebted to our many referees whose diligence and patience make editing a pleasure.
We welcome Danny Douek to his first full year as a replacement Editor. His appointment and the many international members on the Editorial Board emphasize the broad appeal of Clinical and Experimental Immunology. Although the journal is owned by the British Society for Immunology, the submission of papers shows no regional bias and I am keen to ensure that we continue to maintain this position. To advertise our broad appeal, we are planning a wider marketing campaign for the journal at international meetings this year.
During the past year we have worked hard with our publishers, Blackwell Publishing Limited, and the major change that readers and authors will notice is in the speed of publication. We now have a mean time to first decision on a submitted paper of 4 weeks, and so can guarantee a rapid response for all papers; this is even quicker for ‘fast-track’ manuscripts. A key reason for this improvement has been the introduction of e-submission and we have decided to move to a system whereby all papers will be submitted in this way from now on.
The journal now features an in-depth, expert review in almost every issue. Most of these articles are solicited but we welcome suggestions for reviews of topics that have not been covered recently. All such submissions, even when invited, are peer-reviewed, and prospective authors are encouraged to discuss potential reviews in outline with the editors prior to submission, as this will avoid overlaps with those that are already planned. We also endeavour to provide a brief ‘Editorial Review’ in each issue, that addresses the significance of a noteworthy paper in the journal or one that has appeared elsewhere − these reviews put the experimental work into a broad context so that all readers can gain an understanding of both the problems and progress across the range of our discipline. I hope you enjoy this issue and those that follow and, most important of all, Happy New Year!