ESPR: a new dimension for its 20th anniversary!!

The 2013 issues will represent the 20th year of publishing Environmental Science and Pollution Research (ESPR). First of all, I would like to pay my sincerest respects to Professor Otto Hutzinger, the founding father of ESPR, who passed away in late 2012. He was really a visionary in launching ESPR, which he himself defined as “a medium of communication and information with a truly and interdisciplinary outlook” (Hutzinger 1994). Thank you, Otto, for being our guide and I hope that you would be proud of the ESPR 2013 version. In the last 4 years, ESPR has witnessed an incredible increase in activity, moving from around 250 papers submitted in 2009 to around 2,000 papers submitted in 2012. In 2012, the format of the ESPR issues shifted from 200 printed pages to 600 printed pages, increasing both the number of issues and the speed of publication. One hundred sixty papers were accepted in 2011 and 450 papers published in 2012. In the meantime, the time to publication acceptance has dropped to an average of 1.5 months. Such publication growth is partly due to the journal’s 2011/2012 editorial policy. ESPR has a broad scientific scope that allows various research communities (from ecology to environmental engineering, from ecotoxicology to environmental chemistry) to be active in submitting papers to the journal. Publications in new research areas such as “Sustainability”, “Environmental Life Cycle Assessment”, and “Green Processes” have since been accepted in ESPR. An active campaign has been made to encourage the international research community in environmental and pollution sciences to submit their works to ESPR. New publication concepts have also been introduced, such as “Special Issues” (collection of papers dedicated to specific research meetings or projects) and “Highlight Projects” (brief presentations of a research project in 2–3 printed pages). Besides these new ideas, classic topics such as research papers, paper reviews, and conference reports are always welcome. This growth in activity has also impacted the editorial organization of the journal. An editorial assistant has been recruited and is working full time in close collaboration with the Editor in Chief. The assistant serves as a liaison between the authors, the editors, and the editorial Springer Staff, ensuring a fluid and smooth formation of the ESPR issues. The number of the editors has also been significantly increased to 20, and the number of the editorial board members is now around 50. Many thanks to the members of the two boards and to the referees for their excellent job of assessing the scientific quality of the submitted works, and for encouraging specific scientific communities to submit papers to ESPR. Special thanks are due Prof. E. Stephanou, who has since left his position of editor due to heavy university duties, for his valued contributions. Several new editors have been selected as top level and high-impact experts in their specific disciplines and have been invited to serve for 3 years. New editors have been recruited in inorganic and organic environmental chemistry, environmental engineering, environmental microbiology, and atmosphere. You will find a short biographical sketch of each of them as follows. Finally, I intend for ESPR to maintain its cross-disciplinary view among all the disciplines involved in the environmental sciences.More integration is needed between both disciplinary research fields and observation levels. Each article published in ESPR will contribute to achieving these objectives.