As newly appointed editors we warmly welcome our readers to the Journal of Academic Ethics (JAE)!

Since September 2021, I (Loreta) have been entrusted with the JAE in the role of an editor-in-chief, which I take as a huge responsibility. The core founder of the JAE, Professor Deborah C. Poff, is not only a distinguished scholar, but an assiduous and proactive colleague who has established international esteem in the field of academic ethics. Taking over her responsibilities as the editor-in-chief of the JAE is same as a binding and honourable promise to contribute with all my expertise to the JAE’s growth and its continued diversification.

In this Editorial, I take an opportunity to introduce myself and a newly appointed associate editor, Dr Shiva Das Sivasubramaniam (Shiva), to the JAE readers. I have an interdisciplinary educational background in social sciences (Law, Management) and humanities (French Philology). Through the lenses of my interdisciplinarity, and as a social scientist, in the past I contributed with my research affiliated to Mykolas Romeris University and Vilnius University (Lithuania). I currently carry out my research at Hanken School of Economics (Finland), focusing on ethical aspects in academia, namely academic/research integrity, social responsibility in higher education institutions and citizen science. In addition to this, I am involved in international networks related to academic/research integrity and organisational studies. In 2017–2020, I was a member of the Board of the European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI) and I continue to engage with the discipline as a practitioner (e.g., as an Ombudsperson for Academic Ethics and Procedures in Lithuania, I am a member of the Transitional Board of the European Network of Research Integrity Offices).

With a pharmacology/biomedical science background, Shiva has been one of the few medical researchers who also focuses on investigating aspects of medical ethics and integrity sciences, and he has been doing so since 2002. His research areas in this field include establishing innovative teaching methodologies to enable medical/biomedical professionals to develop the ability for situational ethical decision making, student-centred teaching, enhancing academic integrity/plagiarism deterrence, etc. Furthermore, he has been working closely with the Higher Education Academy (HEA, now known as Advance HE) and Plagiarism Advisory Services (PAS) since 2003. He was the academic representative of one of the founder institutions of ENAI in which he currently leads Ethical Advisory Working Group. With several years’ experience as journal reviewer in different scientific journals, he brings his expertise in medical and health sciences related ethical dimensions. As editors, we believe our expertise spans multiple different disciplines.

We feel strongly obliged to harness our different experiences and leadership gained in this field to take the JAE to the next phase (e.g., encouraging diversity and inclusiveness in the Editorial Board and submissions, and publishing special issues on less explored, challenging and breakthrough topics). We do hope that all of you would contribute to these achievements too.

We look forward to working together with you to achieve positive changes in the JAE.