From the new Editor-in-Chief: A sense of personal identity with the Journal of Plant Research

Abstract

I would like to introduce myself as the new Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Plant Research (JPR) for the 4-year term beginning 2 March 2013. I have worked with JPR as an editor in the field of physiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology for the 2009–2012 term under the leadership of Hirokazu Tsukaya, the previous Editor-inChief. As he explained in his editorial in 2013 (Tsukaya 2013), my administrative mission started at this time due to the reform of the Botanical Society of Japan (BSJ) into a Public Interest Corporation. This means that publication of JPR is now recognized as work done by BSJ for the public good, and that BSJ is no longer a society that serves only plant biologists. JPR has been providing opportunities for publishing across the breadth of plant sciences, from taxonomy, phylogenetics, and evolutionary biology to ecology and ecophysiological and environmental biology; morphology, anatomy, and structural biology; genetics and developmental biology; physiology, biochemistry, and molecular and cell biology; and other related fields. This editorial policy is unique, however, amid the current trend toward publication of special-interest journals, a trend that is beneficial in achieving higher impact factors for those journals and is effective in promoting competitive research. Indeed, each research area mentioned above has a journal of its own, so why do we still need JPR? In 2011, JPR was recognized as one of the top 100 journals that published influential papers in biology and medicine in the past 100 years (SLA Biomedical & Life Sciences Division 2009). I agree that this recognition is splendid and acknowledges all the efforts of the people concerned with submission, editorial, and publishing (Tsukaya 2009). However, does this alone justify our editorial policy? My opinion is that the philosophy behind our editorial policy is important: no specific area is sufficient to describe the splendid nature of the plant kingdom, and a wider view is always crucial and complementary for better understanding because, as the old saying goes: ‘‘You can’t see the forest for the trees’’. This view may be correct ideally, but we do not have much choice when facing a table listing the order of journals’ impact factors. I do not mean that JPR will not publish papers that have not qualified for other specific journals. I would just like to remind you that JPR continues to encourage submissions of original research work that can be shared among a readership across the breadth of plant research areas. In this way JPR can provide opportunities for touching on current topics of plant sciences in different fields, which should strengthen a sense of personal identity with JPR as well as with BSJ. JPR has been supported by hundreds of frequent authors for many years. In this context, it is important for us to encourage young students/postdocs to submit their initial works to JPR. The editors and I declare here our support for young plant scientists through the publication of JPR, keeping in mind the following manuscript preparation guidelines: