SoSyM continues to experience a high number of submissions. In 2014, 295 manuscripts were submitted, of which 69 % were reviewed for regular issues, while the other 31 % were submitted for special or theme sections or the industry voice column. The average number of days from submission to a final decision (that is, a final accept or reject) was 221 days. It should be noted that this time includes the time authors spend on making major and subsequent minor revisions (typically 4–5 months). The number of weeks to online publication of an accepted paper is between 3 and 4 weeks.

To better manage the screening of this high number of submissions, we have introduced three associate Editors-in-Chief, namely Marsha Chechik, Martin Gogolla, and Jean-Marc Jezequel. They are primarily responsible for screening new submissions and assigning regular papers to members of the editorial board. In summary, the submission process is in a good shape and with the help of the associate EICs we hope to improve upon its effectiveness.

The overall acceptance rate is 21 % for regular papers and 47 % for special or theme section papers. The latter number, however, does not reflect the early rejections in the process that lead to the special or theme section at all and thus can be considered adequate. Due to the growing submissions in the last years, the publication pipeline increased above one year. Springer therefore increased the number of printed pages per issue significantly by publishing more than 50 % additional pages in 2014 (1,552 pages in total instead of 1,024 pages regularly planned). This has reduced the pipeline. Additionally, the publishers permanently increased the number of papers per SoSyM issue by 32 pages for the second year in a row (from 224 to 256 pages), and they also doubled the number of pages for the first two issues in 2015. It should be noted that this pipeline only affects the printed publication. Accepted papers are available online a few weeks after acceptance and can be accessed and cited by other researchers. Thus, the current pipeline should not pose a significant problem to accepted authors.

In principle, as scientists and editors, our focus is on serving the community as a venue to publish and communicate interesting high-quality scientific results. As EICs of the journal, we also have an obligation to the authors to ensure that their papers are recognized in the community. The download rates and the citation indices can be taken as measurements of how well we actually succeed in disseminating the knowledge contained in SoSyM.

While the download rate of the papers has grown significantly the last 2 years (from 20,267/24,048 in 2010/2011 to 47,647/48,296 in 2012/2013), the citation index has unfortunately dropped. This may be because the increase in printed articles increased the denominator of the citation index faster than the numerator. Recent articles have been downloaded often, and thus, we expect this to lead to citations that have a positive effect on future citation indices.

Below, we list the reviewers who reviewed one or more papers for the journal in the last year. The complete list of reviewers can also be found on our website http://www.sosym.org/.

Rafael Accorsi, Bernhard Aichernig, Marco Aiello, Yamine Ait Ameur, Omar Aldawud, Shaukat Ali, Joao Paulo Almeida, Vasco Amaral, Daniel Amyot, Jesper Andersson, Eric Andonoff, Pascal André, Kelly Androutsopoulos, Ludovic Apvrille, Joao Araujo, Renata Araujo, Uwe Assmann, Jean-Philippe Babau, Costin Badica, Franck Barbier, Luciano Baresi, Joseph Barjis, Gilles Barthe, Rémi Bastide, Hubert Baumeister, Nicolas Belloir, David Benavides, Nelly Bencomo, Luca Berardinelli, Marcello Bonsangue, Paolo Bottoni, Rabea-Ameur Boulifa, Fabrice Bouquet, Benjamin Braatz, Rolv Braek, Marco Brambilla, Phil Brooke, Petra Brosch, Achim D. Brucker, Josè Campos, Daniela Cancila, Javier Canovas, Jorge Cardoso, Antonio Cau, Antonio Cerone, Antonio Cicchetti, Robert Clarisó, Rolland Colette, Philippe Collet, Benoit Combemale, Kendra Cooper, Vittorio Cortellessa, Andrea D’Ambrogio, Maya Daneva, Hung Dang Van, Juan de Lara, Miguel A. de Miguel, Olga De Troyer, Jerome Delatour, Patrick Delfmann, Birgit Demuth, Antinisca Di Marco, Davide Di Ruscio, Remco Dijkman, Zinovy Diskin, Joerg Doerr, Dirk Fahland, Stephan Falke, Julie Fant, João Miguel Fernandes, Peter Fettke, Marcelo Frias, Agnès Front, Juan Pablo Galeotti, Luciano García-Bañuelos, Mareclla Genero, Sebastien Gerard, Johny Ghattas, Holger Giese, Martin Glinz, Claude Godart, Sebastian Goetz, Cesar Gonzalez-Perez, Susann Gottmann, Andreas Griesmayer, Brahim Hamid, Stefan Hanenberg, Cecile Hardebolle, Klaus Havelund, David Heise, Loic Helouet, Brian Henderson-Sellers, Frank Hermann, Rich Hilliard, Jennifer Horkoff, Akos Horvath, Zhenjiang Hu, Manfred Jeusfeld, Paul Johannesson, Einar Broch Johnsen, Chris Johnson, Gerti Kappel, Gabor Karsai, Jürgen Kazmeier, Steven Kelly, Joerg Kienzle, Jacques Klein, Leila Kloul, Barbara König, Agnes Koschmider, Piotr Kosiuczenko, Frank Alexander Kraemer, Hillel Kugler, Mirco Kuhlmann, Marcel Kyas, Marcello La Rosa, Ivan Lanese, Frédéric Lang, Philip Langer, Kevin Lano, Gary T. Leavens, Edward A. Lee, Axel Legay, Tihamer Levendovszky, Antonia Lopes, Roberto Lopez, Levi Lucio, Daniel Lucredio, Mass Soldal Lund, Frédéric Mallet, Shahar Maoz, Dan Matheson, Ilaria Matteucci, José Norberto Mazón, Stephen Mellor, Jan Mendling, Eric Mercer, Marjan Mernik, Jose Javier Merseguer, Mark Minas, Antoine Miné, Parastoo Mohagheghi, Lionel Montrieux, Brice Morin, Angelo Morzenti, Sébastien Mosser, Jean-Marie Mottu, Laurent Mounier, Chokri Mraidha, Henry Muccini, Gunter Mussbacher, Bela Mutschler, Satuluri Naganjaneyulu, Brian Nielsen, Joost Noppen, Selmin Nurcan, Ileana Ober, Andreas L. Opdahl, Fernando Orejas, Gordon J. Pace, Richard Paige, Roberto Passerone, Oscar Pastor, Patrizio Pelliccione, Günther Pernul, Laure Petrucci, Robert Pettit, Christian Prehofer, Erik Proper, Jolyta Ralyté, Isidro Ramos, Istvan Rath, Anders Peter Ravn, Indrakshi Ray, Jan Recker, Bendraou Reda, Gil Regev, Wolfgang Reif, Hajo A. Reijers, Iris Reinhartz-Berger, Arend Rensink, Leila Ribeiro, Stefani Rinderle-Ma, Jan Oliver Ringert, Louis Rose, Michael Rosemann, Matteo G. Rossi, Alessandro Rossini, Adrian Rutle, Shazia Sadiq, Pablo Sanchez, Klaus Schmid, Rainer Schmidt, Michael Schrefl, Dennis Schunselaar, Andy Schürr, Martina Seidl, Bran Selic, Jun Shen, Darius Silingas, Colin F. Snook, Siavash Soleimanifard, Bjornar Solhaug, Alin Stefanescu, Perdita Stevens, Volker Stolz, Harald Störrle, Jing Sun, Yu Sun, Eugene Syriani, Gabriele Taentzer, Robert Tairas, Bedir Tekinerdogan, Thomas Thuem, Richard Trefler, Stavros Tripakis, Javier Troya, Pedro Valderas, Antonio Vallecillo, Stefan Van Baelen, Pieter Van Gorp, Gergely Varró, Jens von Pilgrim, Xu Wang, Matthias Weidlich, Michael Whalen, Jules White, Claas Wilke, Ed Willink, Manuel Wimmer, Sune Wolff, Murray Woodside, Tao Yue, Nicola Zannone, Gianluigi Zavattaro, Kang Zhang, and Yongjie Zheng.

The journal’s reputation and quality is a direct result of the outstanding support provided by authors, reviewers, editors, associate Editors-in-Chief, and the publishing staff. Especially for associate EICs, editors, and reviewers, it is often difficult to balance editorial and review responsibilities with other daily work. We appreciate the excellent efforts all these people put into the review process. Finally, we thank you, the reader, for your support of SoSyM. Please do not hesitate to contact us with your comments about the journal.