How far did we get?

Abstract

The year 2012 was exciting for many reasons. A significant amount of progress was made on the strategic issues that I outlined last year. The ‘niche’we defined for Virchows Archiv has been well received, and with this editorial policy, we have been able to maintain a reasonable copy flow, in terms of content mostly corresponding to that niche. How we will attain the set goals has become clearer. An essential element is the composition of the editorial team. You will have noticed on the opening page of the journal that the functions have been renamed: what used to be Managing Editor is now Associate Editor. The real Managing Editor Dagmar Schmoe, who served the journal for 9 years running the daily affairs from her Kiel office, retires. We owe many thanks to Dagmar for largely hidden but essential contributions to the journal. Her function will be taken over, at least for the time being, by an in-house Editorial Assistant in the Springer office. The terms of office of Vincenzo Eusebi and Gunter Kloppel asManaging Editor and Reviews Editor have come to an end. I should like to thank them both for many years of dedicated service to the pathology community in general and Virchows Archiv in particular. Gunter Kloppel served the journal for more than 20 years; during his term as Editor in Chief, he has been highly instrumental in getting the Virchows Archiv to the stature it has today and he made it the ‘European Journal of Pathology’, official journal of the European Society of Pathology. We will continue to profit from their experience, as they will migrate into the category of ‘past editors’, maintaining an advisory role for the journal. Daniela Massi started her term as Associate Editor and we wish her lots of pleasure and satisfaction in this function. An issue of continuous preoccupation is the quality of scientific writing and sometimes of the science. Many of the submitted papers fall short of the high standards we would like to maintain, even though they might get published with a significant amount of additional editorial work. Which issues are at stake?