At the end of my first year as editor-in-chief of Educational Studies in Mathematics, it is appropriate to reflect on the achievements and challenges of the previous year and to anticipate what the future might bring for the journal.

At the beginning of 2014, we welcomed Arthur Bakker as a new associate editor after he had served for several years on the Editorial Board. Arthur brings to this task his expertise in a wide range of research fields, including statistics education, vocational and workplace education, boundary-crossing, semiotics, technology, and language. In 2015, we anticipate appointing two additional associate editors to help manage the large volume of manuscripts and reduce the average time from manuscript submission to final disposition.

Educational Studies in Mathematics continues to attract a high number of new submissions from the international mathematics education community. The dramatic increase in submissions over the past few years is evident in the following numbers: 115 submissions in 2006, 187 in 2009, 260 in 2012, and 295 in 2013. At the time of writing this editorial (mid-November), 271 manuscripts have been submitted since the beginning of 2014. These are healthy numbers that attest to the journal’s standing and quality. In 2013, manuscripts were submitted by authors from 75 different countries, and 24 countries were represented in the manuscripts accepted for publication in that year. Geographically, the latter countries of author origin are in North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. The journal’s website is also visited by readers from all of these regions, with the most visits recorded by readers in the Asia-Pacific region. It is my hope that visits to the website will translate into more submissions, and more published articles, from underrepresented countries in all of these geographical regions.

In addition to the large number of manuscript submissions, the journal’s Impact Factor is another measure of high standing. The 2013 Impact Factor of Educational Studies in Mathematics, announced on 1 August this year, is 0.639 (Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports® 2013). The journal Impact Factor is a measure of the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular year. In the subject category Education & Educational Research, ESM’s Impact Factor ranks it 125 out of the total 219 journals—quite an achievement for a publication in the specialised field of mathematics education. In addition, when journals in this category are sorted by total citations in the previous year, Educational Studies in Mathematics is ranked at 56 out of the 219 educational research journals.

The success of the journal depends very much on the willingness of colleagues to give their time voluntarily to reviewing and editing. I am grateful to associate editors Arthur Bakker, Paolo Boero, Elizabeth de Freitas, Angel Gutierrez, and Luis Radford and to book review editor Gail Fitzsimons for their significant intellectual contributions to maintaining the high standard of the journal. My thanks also go to members of the Editorial Board, who review an average of 10 manuscripts per year, and all the other reviewers who provide such detailed and constructive feedback to authors—even if they are recommending rejection of a manuscript.

Special issues have been a feature of the journal for many years, and they play an important role in bringing together articles that extend the boundaries of a particular field of research. In 2014, three such issues were published:

  • Representing mathematics with digital media: Working across theoretical and contextual boundaries, guest edited by Lagrange and Kynigos (March, 2014, Vol. 85, issue 3);

  • Characterising and developing vocational mathematical knowledge, guest edited by Bakker and FitzSimons (June, 2014, Vol. 86, issue 2);

  • Social theory and research in mathematics education, guest edited by Morgan and Kanes (October, 2014, Vol. 87, issue 2).

Special issues currently in progress have the following tentative titles:

  • Statistical reasoning: Learning to reason from samples

  • Mathematics education and contemporary theory

  • Communicational perspectives on learning and teaching mathematics.

The future standing of the journal seems assured, thanks to the large number of submissions from authors all over the world; the dedication of the editors, editorial board members, and reviewers; and the wealth of new ideas and developments presented in both regular and special issues.

I urge prospective authors to pay close attention to the aims and scope of the journal, as these guide the editors and reviewers in assessing manuscripts:

Educational Studies in Mathematics presents new ideas and developments of major importance to those working in the field of mathematical education. It seeks to reflect both the variety of research concerns within this field and the range of methods used to study them. It deals with didactical, methodological and pedagogical subjects, rather than with specific programmes for teaching mathematics. The emphasis is on high-level articles which are of more than local or national interest.

As always, I hope that these features of the journal will inspire readers and contributors to advance our field of mathematics education.