Dear Readers, Dear Colleagues,

In 2009, Stefan Lang and Göran Kauermann took over the editorial duties of AStA (see Kauermann and Lang 2009). This was the time when the “old” AStA, called “Allgemeines Statistisches Archiv,” had just been transferred to the “new” AStA, as we know it now. The venerable journal of the German Statistical Society, launched in 1890 and rich in tradition, had just taken off in 2009 to a new market by becoming international. Now, 11 years later we look back to an exciting time and the transition from the “old” to the “new” AStA was quite successful. Today, we find AStA as a stable and well-reputed international statistics journal and the journal has fully arrived on the international scene. The ambitious goal to publish high-quality papers and the careful focus on the journal’s aims and scopes have steadily increased the number of readers and contributing authors. Without an experienced and highly dedicated team of Associate Editors, these achievements of AStA would have not been possible and we, the editors, are therefore very grateful to our AEs.

The last 11 years have been exciting, and statistics as a scientific discipline has been flourishing. This is mirrored in AStA, and we refer exemplary to some special issues of the last years, which reflect the statistical zeitgeist. With the overwhelming developments in computer science, computer experiments have replaced classical experiments in many areas, which was covered in a special issue in 2010 (see Kuhnt and Steinberg 2010). Panel data and their interdisciplinary focus were treated in 2011 (see Haupt and Hsiao 2011). The connection of statistics and actuarial sciences was discussed in 2012 (see Denuit 2012). Climate changes and how statistics can be employed in environmental studies were treated in 2013 (see Fassò et al. 2013). And finally the novel field of ecological statistics was highlighted in a special issue in 2017 (see Langrock and Borchers 2017). The topics of these special issues but also the dozens of published papers in AStA demonstrate the importance and relevance of statistics and exhibit some of the “hot spots” in the last 11 years.

A change in the editorship of a journal is always a good opportunity to revisit the aims and scope of a journal. While we decided to keep the general structure of AStA with its three areas relating to (i) Statistical Applications, (ii) Statistical Methodology and (iii) Statistical Reviews, we also took the chance to modify and renew the more specific characteristics of these sections. In the area of statistical applications, AStA traditionally had a focus on social sciences and particularly business and economics but as is already apparent from the special issues discussed above, the range of applications considered has broadened considerably over the last decade. As a consequence, we now emphasize more clearly that applications also from areas such as engineering, environmental sciences, or life sciences including medicine are very welcome. In the area of Statistical Methodology, we reflect the establishment of Data Science as a new scientific field at the interface of statistics, mathematics, computer science and applications. As a consequence, contributions from data science, statistical learning or at the interface to machine learning are happily considered for AStA. In any case, a clear motivation from a relevant application is required to make a good fit with AStA’s aims and scope. The area on Statistical Reviews remained basically untouched, and we will continue to actively recruit reviews and discussion papers to summarize current developments in statistics. Of course, proactive submissions of review papers are also welcome. Taking the significant success and high citation rates of the special issues in the last years, we will continue to organize and publish thematic issues on particularly active and evolving areas of statistics and its applications.

The new editorial team is decisively committed to strengthening the visibility and relevance of the journal, to widening its scope and increasing the quality and speed of the refereeing process. We warmly welcome potential contributors to submit their original papers to our journal and to contribute jointly to an increasing standing of the journal in a very competitive field. We look forward to your articles, ideas, and suggestions and hope for collaboration in achieving our common aims.