Welcome to the first issue of Gold Bulletin published by Springer through the support of the World Gold Council. It is a pleasure to welcome back regular readers of the journal and an equally warm welcome to first time readers who have perhaps ‘stumbled upon’ the journal through its appearance on the Springer website. Whilst Gold Bulletin has been published for over 40 years, it has until now been produced in-house at the World Gold Council. This issue, published by Springer, marks the start of a new era for Gold Bulletin.

Some aspects of the journal will remain very much as before. Gold Bulletin will continue as a free, peer reviewed, open access journal. The single focus on the science and industrial applications of gold will remain. In each issue, we will aim to include a broad spread of high quality research papers and state of the art reviews of a particular aspect of gold. The support of an active editorial board will be valued. Nanotechnology, catalysis, chemistry, and materials science will all continue to feature. New technological applications for the metal will be dissected.

Of course, a single journal like Gold Bulletin cannot hope to publish all the gold-related research produced every month; so in addition to the original papers we publish, there will also continue to be the regular ‘Highlights’ feature, summarising gold-related publications from other journals, as well as key patents. In this way, the editorial team believe Gold Bulletin will still provide a regular ‘not to be missed’ insight into the cutting edge science, technology and uses of the metal.

Alongside these continuing features, there are new aspects to the journal that are being derived from the publishing agreement with Springer. The journal now benefits from Springer's wider distribution channels and academic publishing expertise. For example, we have already started to use the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system to help with referencing and sourcing papers. The journal's new website benefits from a real-time listing of the number of downloaded papers, advanced online publication assists with speedy publication and there is an excellent online submission system for uploading manuscripts.

Through these initiatives, we believe that Gold Bulletin will steadily become a higher quality, more widely read journal that helps broaden the technological uses of gold in the future.

Enjoy this issue.

Dr. Richard Holliday

Editor