Once upon a time ....10 years ago, the first issue of the Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling (JCCS) was published thanks to the encouragements and support of Peter Butler at Springer who immediately understood the need for our journal that provided a niche for publications dealing with signaling and microenvironmental biology and that it was an important step in the establishment and recognition of our non profit scientific association The International CCN Society (ICCNS). JCCS became the journal of the society.

In a meeting that we had with Peter in Bologna during my stay at the Rizzoli Institute in the frame of a European contract headed by Katia Scotlandi, I had the opportunity to explain why myself and the whole editorial board had decided to find another publisher for the new journal, one of the first « open access journal », that I had created at Biomed Central and called « Cell Communication and Signaling ».

The reasons for this decision was in reaction to the commercial choice of BMC with which we did not agree, as they were significantly increasing the publication charges that author were requested to pay.

In a previous editorial (B. Perbal What kind of a life for a scientific journal? J. Cell. Commun. Signal (2015) 9:201–206) I took the opportunity to provide details in about this disagreement and how we decided to join Springer to continue our publication with the JCCS name to avoid confusion with our previous relation with BMC, and how BMC decided to later reuse the name even though I own the intellectual property moral rights.

In spite of the confusion fueled by the BMC choice, JCCS has expanded its readership and established itself as a sound publication (IF 3;123 and 2.7) in which all published manuscripts are peer reviewed and go through a tight screening to avoid fraud and plagiarism.

We are stunned by the evolution of scientific publishing that has resulted over the past years, at least from both a « publish or perish » type of competition, manipulation of data to quench insatiable desire to appear as a hyper productive scientific leader, and the birth of a « tsunami » of open access journals that are ready to publish any data without solid review as long as they make money (see A. Perbal The disastrous boomerang effects of “citation mania”. J Cell Commun Signal. 2017 11:291–295).

It sadly appears that even those occupying the highest positions are apparently involved in manipulation of data (see The scientistDaily Jan 243, 2018, for a recent example involving the french CNRS Interim President who was fired after accusation of multiple data manipulations).

I have never understood nor accepted that members of the scientific community who are so-called « researchers » could cheat with their data and manipulate experimental evidence to make them fit with their « ego ». Unfortunately, the considerable number of recent publications retractions shows that the spreading sickness calls for the highest vigilance and action in order to fight its disastrous impact on the quality and reliability of scientific communication.

The vision that we have at JCCS is shared by all the members of our editorial board and by the staff involved at all steps of the publication process.

I would like to take the opportunity given by the publication of this 10th anniversary issue to sincerely thank all those at Springer, among whom Carmina Jimenez, Jill Mortillero, Lady Loraine Moreno, Kenneth Mercullo at production and our Springer editors Thijs van Vlijmen and Meran Lloyd-Owen who all actively supported JCCS from its inception and contributed to the high quality of our journal, both online and in print.

A special thank to Peter Butler for his constant support to the journal and the ICCNS.

On a practical standpoint the revenues of the journal which are entirely put into the organisation of our biennial workshop on the CCN family of Genes (the 9th edition of which was held in Saint-Malo in 2017) are essential to the survival of this meeting which provide a unique forum for information exchange and initiation of collaborative projects in the fields of cell signaling.

Therefore, the scientific quality of manuscripts that we published at JCCS is also vital to the survival of the ICCNS workshops and their educational roles.

Of course, all this is only permitted and achieved through the active participation of our editorial board members, whom I would like to personaly thank for their help and the support that they showed to us by kindly responding to my invitation to participate in the present special issue.

Last but not least, I would like to warmly thank Andrew Leask for his considerable help since the beginning of this venture and for his present dedication as the managing editor of JCCS.

Let me also deeply thank my wife Annick for her volunteer and constant support as a JCCS administrative assistant and huge involvement in our ICCNS meetings.

With that being said, I wish all our readers and colleagues a very fruitful and happy new year 2018 and hope that the journal keep on sailing to the highest ranking in the scientific publication world.