Editorial developments

Abstract

We are delighted to announce that from January 2009, Professor Murray T Batchelor of the Australian National University, Canberra will be the new Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical.Murray Batchelor has been Editor of the Mathematical Physics section of the journal since 2007. Prior to this, he served as a Board Member and an Advisory Panel member for the journal. His primary area of research is the statistical mechanics of exactly solved models. He holds a joint appointment in mathematics and physics and has held visiting positions at the Universities of Leiden, Amsterdam, Oxford and Tokyo. We very much look forward to working with Murray to continue to improve the journal's quality and interest to the readership.We would like to thank our outgoing Editor-in-Chief, Professor Carl M Bender. Carl has done a magnificent job as Editor-in-Chief and has worked tirelessly to improve the journal over the last five years. Carl has been instrumental in designing and implementing strategies that have enhanced the quality of papers published and service provided by Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical. Notably, under his tenure, we have introduced the Fast Track Communications (FTC) section to the journal. This section provides a venue for outstanding short papers that report new and timely developments in mathematical and theoretical physics and offers accelerated publication and high visibility for our authors.During the last five years, we have raised the quality threshold for acceptance in the journal and now reject over 60% of submissions. As a result, papers published in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical are amongst the best in the field. We have also maintained and improved on our excellent receipt-to-first-decision times, which now average less than 50 days for papers.We have recently announced another innovation; the Journal of Physics A Best Paper Prize. These prizes will honour excellent papers that make outstanding contributions to the field and we look forward to awarding the inaugural prizes in May 2009.With the help of Murray Batchelor and our distinguished Editorial Board, we will be working to further improve the quality of the journal whilst continuing to offer excellent services to our readers, authors and referees.We hope that you benefit from reading the journal. If you have any comments or questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at jphysa@iop.org.Rebecca Gillan Publisher