In February of 2023, I returned home after spending some time traveling in Spain. During my time in Europe, I had the opportunity to speak with a number of editorial advisors. They are Norat Roig-Tierno from the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain, Alicia Mas-Tur from the University of Valencia in Spain, Biagio Simonetti from the University of Sannio in Italy, and Maciej Kozowski from the University of Lodz in Poland. They are academics who have collaborated with the Quality & Quantity since Vittorio Capecchi was the journal’s founding Editor (University of Bologna, Italy).

I’ve held the position of chief editor for the past three years. I had the opportunity to meet a few new advisers when I traveled to Singapore in the fall of 2022, including Younbo Jung from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Muneo Kaigo from the University of Tsukuba in Japan. However, this is the first time I’ve met a number of long-term members in Europe. Both Norat Roig-Tierno and Alicia Mas-Tur published an article in October 2018 titled “Half a century of Quality & Quantity: a Bibliometric Review.“ They informed me about the history in great detail while they were writing the article. My visit to Spain was made possible by Biagio Simonetti. I’ve noticed that he’s been a key player in promoting the journal among Italian statisticians.

I’m having an important discussion with our editors and advisers about what’s been going on with my editorship. For example, using DEI (Diversity-Equity-Inclusion) principles, I established a new series of Associate Editors and advisory members to conduct preliminary manuscript evaluations, A section for book reviews was brought back to life by me. I formatted a new Special Edition guideline, and reorganized the editorial board based on several performance indicators. I often speak how well this system works.

In fact, I’ve had to overcome some significant obstacles. The publisher’s direct desk staff, for example, has left three or four times so far. In this case, I’m referring to the Journal Editorial Office, which oversees the Editorial Management. To make it worse, the former Editor in Chief (EIC)’s managing editor who had previously worked with the journal had left for severe health issues. I had some difficulty finding an alternative managing editor due to several constraints. Dr. Pieter Stek is the successor I was able to locate. To my delight, he is excellent enough.

More specifically, after more than three years as EIC I’ve asked them if there were any aspects of the journal that particularly appealed to them. As Biagio Simonetti points out, for example, “The journal is now classified as Class “A” for career advancement procedures in the Statistical Sciences sectors in Italy. This is a significant accomplishment. Nonetheless, the Italian academic community with whom I have had contact anticipates the publication of high-quality papers in the journal. Furthermore, review procedures must be faster than they are now.“

Advisors and editors are requesting that research output be published in top-tier journals, particularly those indexed in Web of Science (WoS). In fact, the journal was removed from the ranking in 2018, and it can take several years for WoS to reconsider evaluating a journal. The publisher’s Abstracting & Indexing representative meets with Clarivate/WoS on a regular basis, and the journal will be returned before it’s too late. That will have to wait.

Finally, after meeting European members and readers, I concluded that in order to make future progress, it would be best to meet with them on a frequent basis and listen to their perspectives.