Broadening the Scope While Maintaining High Impact

Starting with this issue, a new editorial board assumes responsibility for the editorial policies of Plant Physiology. With the support of the scientific community, I will strive to continue the policies put in place by the previous editor, Maarten Chrispeels, and to further broaden the scope of the journal. Under Maarten's leadership, the journal experienced a steady rise in its “impact factor” and maintained its position as the plant biology journal with the highest citation rate. Plant Physiology remains unique among all plant biology journals: It is a first-rank, peer-reviewed journal published by a scientific society; it is run for and by scientists; and it is committed to scientific excellence and publishing the broadest range of papers in modern plant biology. While building on these strengths, I have also set myself the goal of further increasing the visibility and influence of Plant Physiology by continuing to emphasize excellence, broadening the content, and enlivening the presentation. In this manner, I hope thatPlant Physiology will come to be viewed by plant biologists as the journal of choice for the widest spectrum of plant science research, the journal in which all of the fields of plant biology converge as we enter the post-genomic era. Peer-reviewed, primary research articles will continue to be the predominant thrust of scientific information in Plant Physiology. We will broaden the disciplinary scope of Plant Physiology to reflect the amazing changes occurring worldwide in plant biology. If you compare the new board with previous boards, you will see that it is more international than ever before. I have persuaded an international group of outstanding scientists to join our editorial board. Although published by the American Society of Plant Physiologists, this is not an American journal; Plant Physiology belongs to the international community of plant biologists, and it will continue to serve their needs and be published for their benefit. To broaden the scope of the journal, we have created some new areas with their own associate editors and strengthened some existing areas. For example, Barry Osmond (Australia) and Ernst Steudle (Germany), both world leaders in their respective fields, have agreed to become monitoring editors. This will strengthen the section on “Whole Plant and Ecophysiology,” for which Jan Zeevaart (U.S.), an authority on hormone physiology, will be the Associate Editor. Frederick Ausubel (U.S.) has agreed to be the Associate Editor for “Plants Interacting with Other Organisms.” He will be able to rely on several new monitoring editors, who, though young, have already made outstanding contributions to the field. The new Associate Editor for Development is Ben Scheres (The Netherlands). He will be assisted by several new editors in this rapidly expanding field. Joanne Chory (U.S.) will continue as Associate Editor for “Signal Transduction and Hormone Action.” Rapid progress in the study of plant genomes and molecular evolution dictates that we appoint an associate editor for this field, and Susan Wessler (U.S.) has agreed to help shape this new section. If you are in this field, expect a phone call from Susan urging you to send us a paper from your laboratory. Vicki Chandler (U.S.) will continue to serve as head of the section “Molecular Biology and Gene Regulation,” and John Browse (U.S.) will lead the section devoted to “Biochemical Processes.” Don Ort (U.S.) has accepted my invitation to continue to serve as Associate Editor for “Environmental Stress and Adaption” and “Bioenergetics and Photosynthesis.” I will take responsibility for the “Cell Biology” section. If you look attentively at the new list of associate and monitoring editors, you will see where the journal is headed. I am also introducing some new features to the journal, some of which were announced in January. The new section Breakthrough Technologies has met with an extremely positive initial response from the plant community. Because plant science is in an unprecedented growth period, the board will attempt to provide the most rapid turnaround time feasible. Several new members have joined the board to serve as monitoring editors responsible for this section. If you are on the verge of writing a manuscript describing a technological breakthrough, contact Rob Last (e-mail malto: rob.last@cereon.com; phone 617–551–8223) and solicit his opinion. We will invigorate theScientific Correspondence section, which is also very rapidly reviewed, mainly by members of the board. For this section, we will accept very short articles (one to three printed pages) covering new scientific ideas and analyzing new and interesting concepts and paradigms. I will personally solicit such contributions and will initially handle the review process myself. In the past, Maarten Chrispeels handled all of the Updates himself. I have shifted this responsibility to two new feature editors, Ann Hirsch and Wilhelm Gruissem, who will solicit Updates and occasionallyMeeting Reports. Because Plant Physiology is an extremely broad journal covering all of plant biology, the impact or relevance of a particular article may not be immediately obvious to all readers from the title or from a quick perusal of the abstract. To make it easier for our readers to spot articles relevant to their research, in the near future we will feature a new section at the front of the journal to be called On the Inside. In this section, five interesting articles from the issue will be highlighted. Our hope is to draw readers' attention to a wider variety of excellent research. With the help of the other editors, I will select the articles to be featured in this section, which will be written by a yet-to-be-appointed science writer. The executive committee of ASPP has granted our request to add a science writer to the Plant Physiology staff. Plant Physiology is rapidly moving toward electronic submission and web-based reviewing, which undoubtedly will substantially speed turnaround times. The electronic journal is already available on the web 2 to 3 weeks earlier than the hard copy, and links to supplementary material on the web are also in place. Criteria for publication in Plant Physiology were set forth in January's Editorial (Vol. 122, pp. 1–2). We aim to publish a broad spectrum of papers that bring new insights into plant biological processes. By enhancing the level of communication among board members, we will do our best to ensure that these criteria are applied consistently. Finally, the success of Plant Physiology rests not only on the quality of the work published, but also on the trust, cooperation, and respect between the editors of the journal and the international community of plant biologists. I assure you that as Editor-in-Chief, I will do everything possible to secure that trust and respect. On behalf of The Editorial Board ofPlant Physiology,