Systematic Parasitology is thriving! Since the number of submissions has been steadily increasing during recent years, we have decided to update the journal in order to reduce the time between the acceptance and publication of articles. We are pleased to offer Online First for articles accepted for publication in Systematic Parasitology prior to the publication of the printed version. This will increase the visibility and impact of the published research, substantially reduce the time before publication and bring the journal into line with other Springer publications.

In order to comply with the regulations set out in article 8.5 of the amended 2012 version of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN, 2012) concerning electronic online publication of new scientific names and nomenclatural acts, we shall require the registration of publications on the Official Register of Zoological Nomenclature (ZooBank.org) upon the acceptance of a manuscript. Following this registration, the Online First version becomes the Version of Record, i.e. the formal publication and date of publication, and should be cited by using the DOI number. Although the Code amendment does not stipulate the registration of new scientific names, Systematic Parasitology will also require that new names are registered in ZooBank. These changes will ensure that articles, including new names and/or nomenclatural acts, published in Online First articles meet all of the criteria for availability.

To promote the visibility of research publications, Systematic Parasitology will introduce a new feature called ‘Topical Collections’ to be published online, which will group articles on higher-level taxa which contain significant taxonomic/systematic innovation. We are confident that these virtual topical article collections will enhance searches for articles with newly published content on specific parasite groups and be of wide interest. We shall start with the following Topical Collections: Acanthocephala, Arthropoda, Digenea, Cestoda, Monogenea and Nematoda.

I hope the introduction of the new features in Systematic Parasitology will meet authors’ expectations for the fast dissemination of their research and would like to express my gratitude to Lars Koerner from Springer for his invaluable advice during the process of this introduction.