In the course of 2021, IJRUME has undergone several, and exciting, changes. In this editorial, we report on these and we share reflections discussed also with Editorial Board (EB) members at the two virtual meetings held on June 17 and 18.

2021 saw the arrival of a renewed team of editors-in-chief, with Elise Lockwood joining Ghislaine Gueudet and Elena Nardi (who also joined IJRUME as editors-in-chief relatively recently, in 2019) and with Igor’ Kontorovich joining as Book Reviews Editor. In 2020 and 2021, following a few departures from the EB due to retirement or changes of professional role, we have also welcomed several new EB members. We cannot repeat emphatically enough how absolutely crucial the role of our EB is and how grateful we are as Editors for its rigorous, prompt, and supportive work.

We are delighted to report that IJRUME’s standing as a leading venue for publishing university mathematics education (UME) research continues to grow apace. We hope that this makes its team of founding editors-in-chief – Karen Marrongelle, Chris Rasmussen and Mike O.J. Thomas - proud. We will forever be indebted to them, for launching IJRUME in the first place.

This recognition of IJRUME was concretised further this year by its indexation in Scopus, following a successful application spurred on by Springer’s STEM, Medical and Vocational Education Editor, Puja Dayal. We thank Puja warmly. We stress that one of the criteria for eligibility to apply for this indexing was that the journal publishes at least twenty articles per year. The increase in the number of articles published was therefore decisive as was the growing international profile of IJRUME authors. We will continue to work on improving IJRUME’s indexation and, very importantly, we will also continue and intensify the journal’s efforts to be as inclusive as possible of works that meet our high standards of scientific quality and that come from research communities around the world.

On this note, we are also pleased to report that the IJRUME editor-in-chief team has been involved in an initiative that is directly preoccupied with this concern for diversity: the Anti-Racist Editorial Practices working group. Between September 2020 and June 2021, a group of editors from several mathematics education research journals met monthly to pursue an initiative to develop anti-racist editorial practices in Mathematics Education. The group was convened by Jeffrey Choppin and Dan Battey, and is chaired by Dorothy Y. White. Fruits of the group’s efforts include a statement – that we have proudly signed as IJRUME editors-in-chief – and a toolkit of resources available to editors for supporting their work in this area. You can find the statement at https://mathematicseducationjournals.com/, and you will be hearing more about this, and the resources, in the coming months.

Finally, we would like to share reflections on four topics that preoccupy us as Editors-in-Chief. We welcomed thoughts on these during the June 2021 EB meetings and we see their discussion as ongoing as the journal moves forward. They concern IJRUME’s remit, the commission of Special Issues and the growth of our Research Commentary and Book Reviews sections.

What is within IJRUME’s remit is an ongoing, perennial conversation (as is for any journal), and we expect the conversation around this topic to evolve and progress in coming years. Generally, we want to remain committed to publishing research that pertains to the teaching and learning of university-level mathematics, but we welcome broad perspectives and creative ways to investigate such issues. We embrace the myriad different approaches and viewpoints that the many and varied communities involved in UME bring. As several papers published recently in IJRUME – and almost the entire 7(2), our Special Issue on Mathematics in/for Engineering Education – attest, the teaching and learning of mathematics is fertile ground for university-level research, practice, and policy that transcends departments of mathematics. The quality of the teaching and learning of university-level mathematics affects the experiences – as well as access, attainment, and life-long relationship with the subject – of learners in numerous disciplines. As the scope of UME is changing, so is the scope of UME research. We aspire that IJRUME provides a platform for showcasing these changes as inclusively and comprehensively as possible.

Among the recent developments contributing to the enrichment of IJRUME, we want to stress the list of coming Special Issues (SIs). Take a look at the relevant Journal Updates section at https://www.springer.com/journal/40753/updates/18918616. Two (Calculus related) SI proposals emerged from teams that were formed during the meetings of the first Calculus in upper secondary and beginning university mathematics conference held in Norway in 2019. A third takes a bold and diverse look at inquiry-based mathematics classrooms at university. These SIs embrace numerous theoretical approaches and methodological lenses and aspire to cover a wonderfully dizzying range of pedagogical, epistemological, sociocultural, cognitive, discursive, semiotic, and affective issues. If you have a Special Issue project, please contact us. We will be happy to discuss it with you, and to support you in the design of an SI proposal!

Further, we are very keen to develop our relatively new Research Commentary (RC) section. RC articles are intended to be brief pieces, up to 5,000 words excluding references, that offer thoughtful consideration of issues relevant to our community. They may report emerging research in the field and/or be theoretically inclined. We have published a handful of RC articles and we welcome more submissions of this type. Do not hesitate to contact us to discuss ideas – nascent or more developed – for a Research Commentary!

Finally, we are very keen to also develop further our Book Reviews (BR) section – with the sterling support of our enthusiastic new BR Editor! Typically, our BR Editor searches for appropriate books the review of which is likely to be of interest to IJRUME readers - and then identifies an able and willing reviewer. Alternatively, book authors and editors may contact our BR Editor and propose an item for consideration. Our message to you is this: if you have contributed to the authorship of a UME related volume in the last couple of years (monograph or edited volume), do not hesitate to make contact with our BR Editor to discuss the possibility of it being reviewed in IJRUME. The same applies to you as a reader of UME related works: if you recently read an item that you wish to share your thoughts on with the readership of IJRUME, contact our BR Editor to discuss the possibility of writing a review.

With issue 7(3), a quite tricky year – to put it mildly – is coming to an end. With the unrelenting support from our authors and reviewers, IJRUME has continued to thrive. We thank you all wholeheartedly, and we urge you to now read on!