This issue marks the close of my five-year term of office as editor-in-chief of Educational Studies in Mathematics. I am delighted to welcome Merrilyn Goos of the University of Queensland, Australia, as the next editor-in-chief. Merrilyn will take office in January 2014, with the publication of vol. 85, issue 1. Merrilyn has served for several years as an associate editor, and I am confident that the journal will continue to thrive under her able editorship. In the final months of 2013 and into the start of 2014, we shall work together for a smooth transition.

As I consider the number of new submissions to the journal in the period 2006–2012, the stature of the journal is evident in the increase of these numbers: In 2006, 115 manuscripts were submitted; this figure had increased to 187 in 2009, 215 in 2010, and 270 in 2011. The number appears to have stabilized in 2012: 260 manuscripts were submitted to the editorial manager. It can be seen that in this 6-year period, the number of new manuscripts submitted (not to mention revisions of manuscripts with a decision of major or minor revisions) has more than doubled. I am happy to report that in the two and a half years since the journal was accepted into the Social Sciences Citation Index, there has been an increase in its impact factor—another measure of its ongoing success.

We now have five associate editors, Paolo Boero, Elizabeth de Freitas, Angel Gutierrez, Luis Radford, and of course Merrilyn Goos (who will be replaced as an associate editor in January). Their willingness to go beyond the call of duty and their commitment to quality contribute enormously to the continuing strength of the journal. My gratitude and thanks go to them all. During my term of office, Gail FitzSimons enhanced the usefulness of the journal to readers by serving as an able and active book review editor. Gail stepped down from this work in 2013. Thanks to Gail for her meticulous work and to all those authors who contributed their high-quality service to the field of mathematics education research by submitting their reviews of important new literature in this field. Heartfelt thanks, too, to the 45 editorial board members whose careful reviewing of the many manuscripts submitted to them helps the editors in their decision making and contributes to the quality of papers published in the journal. This work is twofold: addressing recommendations for the editors and serving a mentoring function for both new and established authors. This work is indeed both service and scholarship. Quality reviews are at the heart of the success of the journal, and the work of all those scholars who submitted such reviews in my term of office is greatly appreciated.

As always, “Educational Studies in Mathematics presents new ideas and developments [that] are considered to be of major importance to those working in the field of mathematics education” (statement on the second page of each issue of the journal). Thus, the journal continues to welcome both theoretical and empirical manuscripts that describe significant developments or insights in mathematics education, dealing with “didactical, methodological, and pedagogical subjects rather than with specific programmes for teaching mathematics.” From its inception, the journal has had an ongoing partnership with the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME), and the first editor of the journal was Hans Freudenthal. Like PME, the journal has evolved in the more than three decades of its publication, to keep abreast of the maturing field of mathematics education research, opening up to social and cultural aspects of the teaching and learning of mathematics, and to the influence of the rapidly developing world of interactive technology. Theory and useful methodologies are also evolving. Some of these developments are manifest in special issues of the journal that have come out in recent years:

  • Signifying and meaning-making in mathematics thinking, teaching and learning: Semiotic perspectives, guest edited by Radford, Schubring, and Seeger (July 2011: vol. 77, issues 2 and 3).

  • The inverse principle: Psychological, mathematical, and educational considerations, guest edited by Verschaffel, Bryant, and Torbeyns (March 2012: vol. 79, issue 3).

  • Mathematics education and contemporary theory, guest edited by Brown and Walshaw (May 2012: vol. 80, issues 1 and 2).

  • Problem posing in mathematics teaching and learning: Establishing a framework for research, guest edited by Singer, Ellerton, and Cai (May 2013: vol. 83, issue 1).

  • Alternative perspectives on learning mathematics in the early years, guest edited by Krummheuer (October 2013: vol. 84, issue 2).

Special issues that are still in the process of production have the following tentative titles:

  • Social theory and research in mathematics education.

  • Characterizing and developing vocational mathematical knowledge.

  • Digital representation in mathematics education: Conceptualizing the role of context and networking theories.

  • Statistical reasoning.

My ongoing wish for all readers and contributors is that Educational Studies in Mathematics may continue to bring stimulating and useful ideas, and products of their fulfillment, to our field of mathematics education, for the advancement of the teaching and learning of mathematics for all.