The winds of change are blowing
Ines Chyla, our outgoing Managing Editor, selected as a title of her farewell Editorial (Issue 9/ 09) Heraclitus' famous quote ("The only constant is change"); and so the process of renewing the editorial board of EJLST continues. Having served on the board for ten years, we, Michel Parmentier and Franz Ulberth, will also say goodbye as the editors responsible for "Engineering" and "Analytics". Over the past years we have seen a tremendous growth of the journal, and we were proud to see that the recognition of the journal within the lipid science community grew from year to year. As responsible editors, we were charged with making decisions, sometimes really tough ones, whether to accept or reject submitted manuscripts. We have always been committed to highest standards in science and to the reconciliation of the views of both the authors and the independent peers reviewing them. Knowledge is one of the rare things that increases if your share it. In our community, journals are the "number one medium" for disseminating knowledge; peer-reviewing is a highly appreciated way of ensuring the quality of published papers. We were the organisers of this process, thereby serving our readership.
Let us underline some important points of history, which could highlight how this really small journal has grown from year to year. A little over 10 years ago, we were part of a group of European scientists who met at the Frankfurt Airport (June 8, 1999) under the initiative of Prof. Friedrich Spener, president of the DGF, and a member of the Think tank, who consequently decided to move to a new European approach in the scientific field of the lipid science and technology. The evidence of the need of an efficient and high standard Journal for the new European Society had been postulated unanimously to create a forum for lipid scientists and professionals inside the novel Federation. To take its own place in the international lipid chorus, Euro Fed Lipid was established on a tripod: a strong management with robust statutes, a regular annual congress gathering more than 500 registrants, and a scientific journal, competing with the best ones of the domain. Today, it can be said that all these glasses have been successfully filled, since (i) the management proved flexibility and durability through two changes of its Officers, (ii) our Euro Fed Lipid congresses (Graz was the 7 th edition) gather more than 650 regular registrants, and (iii) the European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology has taken its place in the international scientific publishing business.
In the field of scientific publishing, launching a new title remains a complex challenge. Let us just quote Jim Lyon, who was the General Secretary of the American Oil Chemist's Society when we met in Brussels (November 15, 2001) to discuss the future ISF management between American, Asian and European member societies: When Fritz mentioned that we were launching a new European scientific journal, he just said Good luck, Friends! which was far more than a sign of an arduous challenge for us to tackle. . . When EJLST started ten years ago, the journal's key scientific areas were the processing, analytics, and chemistry/physical chemistry of fats and oils. Gradually, the journal has put more emphasis on the rapidly developing fields of biotechnology, biochemistry and nutritional effects of lipids. The last decade has also seen the dawn of a new "omics" discipline -lipidomics. It will probably not replace the more traditional ways of looking into the material composition of fats and oils, but has an enormous potential of revealing the many ways lipids are involved in biological processes. We are both convinced that EJLST will be a premier forum for discussing these new developments in lipid science.
Before closing this exciting chapter of our scientific life, let us express some thanks: first to Professor Fritz Spener, who paved the way, organised and managed all this work with a constant focus on scientific quality and rigor, but also trusting his Associate Editors in every case. Secondly, to the Publishing House, Wiley-VCH, which has supported and facilitated our work