A new era

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The publishing landscape is continuously evolving and so Nordic Journal of Botany has gone through an exciting success story during the last decades. Nordic Journal of Botany (NJB) was formed in 1980 by the Council of the Nordic Botanical Publications (NBP), by merging the Scandinavian botanical journals Botaniska Notiser, Botanisk Tidsskrift, Friesia and Norwegian Journal of Botany. In 2007, then-managing editor Maria Persson took over the running of the journal and, together with technical editor Petter Oscarson, she drove from Lund, Sweden, to Aarhus, Denmark, to collect about 80 paper manuscripts. The status of the manuscripts was unclear, and the editorial board was not known. However, biogeographer and museum curator Torbjörn Tyler agreed to become Editor-in-Chief (EiC) for the journal, and it was renamed to Nordic Journal of Botany. Together, Maria and Torbjörn tracked down authors, invited new editors and revised the format for taxonomic manuscripts. It took almost two years to publish the first issue. In 2009, the Nordic Society Oikos (NSO) welcomed NJB into its family of journals and NJB has grown increasingly successful over the years. With Torbjörn Tyler in charge of the scientific content, the journal soon became a well-known, international outlet for high-quality taxonomy, systematics, biogeography and biodiversity. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to Torbjörn for his tireless efforts over the past 19 years which made NJB into what it is today. Torbjörn is now deservedly retiring from his EiC duties at the journal; however, we are pleased that he will stay with us as Subject Editor for northern European plant taxonomy. As an expert on the genus Hieracium and with a vast expertise on biogeography, taxonomy, systematics, biodiversity and conservation, we hope that he will find time to publish one or the other inspiring article in NJB! In 2019, we were honoured to be joined by Sara Cousins (Stockholm University), an expert in plant community ecology, who became our EiC for plant and fungal ecology. With her support and expertise, we were able to expand our scope, especially through some exciting special issues on topics such as nature-based solutions and pollination ecology. Nordic Journal of Botany is now entering into a new era with new EiC Jalil Noroozi (University of Vienna). Alongside Sara Cousins, Jalil will help NJB to bridge the gap between ecology and taxonomy. We want to ensure that our publications are relevant to a wider audience and place taxonomy into the context of ecological, evolutionary and biogeographical patterns. Our high-quality plant and fungal taxonomy and systematics content will remain. In addition to the changes in the editorial board, NJB has now moved to a Gold Open Access publishing model. While an increasing number of funders and institutions mandate Open Access publishing, it is also our belief that scholarly research should be freely accessible to read, use, and share. This accelerates the generation of scientific knowledge and increases the impact of research – benefits that are especially important during times of rapid socio-economic and environmental change. The NSO has therefore decided to make NJB a Gold Open Access journal from 1 January 2026 onwards, which means all articles are permanently free to read, share, download and distribute. We endeavour to make this transition as smooth as possible for our authors, by informing about the various agreements in place to cover the Article Publication Charge and trying our best to support authors who lack financial support. We are looking forward to 2026 and the excellent science NJB will bring forth together with our EiCs, our editorial board and you all! Friederike Gehrmann Managing Editor