This issue of AZChE Journal marks several important innovations. For the first time in its four decades of operation, the Journal has expanded from a single editor to a team comprising associate editors. Our aim is to provide more expert judgment and decision-making on submitted manuscripts while maintaining rapid, knowledgeable review. This move has also been driven by the steady increase in the number and diversity of submissions, which now averages about 20%, or 100 manuscripts per year, above the 1992 level.
This change, however, should be invisible to readers and authors of the Journal, since all submissions and communications concerning the status of manuscripts will continue to be handled by the Minnesota Editorial Office. We feel that this centralized processing and communication procedure will streamline the operation.
The diverse expertise of the editorial team will help maintain the Journal's standing as the highest quality monthly that covers a wide spectrum of interests to fundamental chemical engineering research. Chemical engineering continues to be the only engineering discipline where the entire literature of the field is accepted in single journals for the whole profession. The Journal's impact on our field might appropriately be compared to that of Science or Nature on science as a whole. We intend to aim ourselves increasingly toward subjects of exceptionally broad scope and deep significance to chemical engineering. Material of narrow scope and incremental significance belongs in more specialized journals.
The quality of a journal is directly related to the conscientious efforts of authors and referees. We understand that thorough refereeing is very time-consuming, and referees may have to decline review requests at times. Essential to reviewing an article is that the referee be firm and clear in expressing an opinion and the rationale for it. We do not ask them to be the final judges of whether or not an article should be published; that is our job. We do, however, ask that referees explain to us as fully as possible the nature of the accomplishment described. Correctness is necessary, but not by itself an adequate reason for the Journal to publish a piece of work.