Foreword: The beginning of a new era for RACSAM

Abstract

Although the Spanish Academy of Sciences (Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales) was created in 1847 by the Spanish Queen Isabel II (1830–1904), it was only in 1905 that the Academy inaugurated a research journal, called the Revista de la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales de Madrid. This was done at the initiative of the President of the Academy, Jose Echegaray (1832–1916), an engineer and mathematician who won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature, and by the 1906 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology, Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852–1934). A previous journal of the Academy, launched in 1850with the nameRevista de los progresos de las Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales, consisted of little more than survey articles and news about scientific life in Spain. The current journal is, as mentioned, a research journal. It shortened its name to Revista de la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales in 1996. A representative list of articles published before 2005 was presented in the journal’s special issue number 100. It was in March 2001 when the Academy started the series, Serie A: Matematicas of the Revista de la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales with the acronym RACSAM. At the time, Angel Martin Municio was President of the Academy and Gregorio Millan Barbany was President of the Mathematical Section. We at RACSAMmust acknowledge with gratitude the indispensable help and support of the Madrid Academy of Sciences and its Presidents Carlos Sanchez del Rio y Sierra, Alberto Galindo Tixaire andMiguel Angel Alario y Franco, and also the current President of the Mathematical Section, Dario Maravall Casesnoves. Our new series better serves the mathematical communications of our Spanish Academy, as that is now its sole concern, rather than the whole of science. We thank the many authors and reviewers for their generous support. Spanish and foreign members of our Academy and many other authors communicate papers to RACSAM of a quality that has already been recognised by those who deal with