As of 1st January 2015, I have taken on the responsibility of Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Population Research (JPR). I consider it an honour and a privilege to serve this most important demographic journal. It also gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the first edition of JPR for which I have acted as editor.

I am thankful to the outgoing Editor-in-Chief, Edith Gray, who has been in the role for 8 years and has done an outstanding job of establishing JPR as a leading demographic journal. Edith has made the transition easy by kindly agreeing to serve as an Associate Editor. I am very aware of the responsibilities that the editor’s role entails, and I approach the job with both excitement and apprehension! I also gratefully acknowledge the editorial and production crew at Springer for their support during the transition period.

Moving forward, I would like to continue exploring opportunities to make JPR an exciting place to publish high quality papers on demography and population issues. While I do not propose radical changes, I have plans that I would like to share with you. Over the coming months, I plan to speed up the review process while maintaining the high standard of peer and editorial review. Of course, this depends on timely peer review from my fellow reviewers. Everyone is undoubtedly busy with competing demands but it is important to realise that we have a responsibility of service to our discipline and our wider scientific community. Please help me by accepting review assignments when you are asked and returning the reviews within the given time. We count on you all to provide a speedy and fair review and to achieve our quality standards.

JPR is served by a highly committed team of associate editors. I do plan to update the team of associate editors to expand the range of expertise and to provide an efficient and speedy review process. The journal is also backed by an Editorial Advisory Board. Members of the editorial advisory board are individuals of the highest standing in demography. I look forward to working with them to promote and develop JPR.

I would also like to thank all submitting authors who choose JPR as the journal in which they would like to publish and the reviewers for generously giving their time and expertise to the peer-review process.

Finally I want to express my thanks for the opportunity to serve the Australian Population Association and JPR. It’s truly a delight to be associated with JPR and I will strive to increase the profile and readership of JPR while maintaining excellence in the research that it publishes.

Best wishes for 2015 and thank you in advance for your contribution to JPR!