When researchers want to learn about an unfamiliar subject, they turn to review papers. Well-written review papers provide us with a succinct summary of the topic along with a rich set of references. We can find review papers on almost any topic. Some fields have journals that exclusively publish review papers. Ours is a unique journal that publishes multidisciplinary review papers. The theme of each issue is different from that of the others. But this raises two important questions: who reads our journal and, more importantly, who looks forward to reading each issue? The answer seems to be that each person picks and chooses the issue of journal they would like to read depending on their interest. Thus, this journal serves as a reference.

The utility of this journal is enhanced because all authors are handpicked by the guest editor because of their expertise and are invited to write. This ensures that each issue covers a topic at hand comprehensively. While it is useful for readers, it certainly is demanding in terms of time and effort for authors. The journal is indebted to the authors who selflessly contribute; selflessly because there are no tangible benefits that count towards scientometrics. A review paper usually brings more citations than a regular paper. But this might not be true for our journal because each issue has a different theme and hence its readership is limited. This led us to a major talking point in the first meeting of the new editorial board: how do we make this journal appealing to prospective authors? What emerged was the view that writing review papers should be seen as a scientific service. This idealistic take on the subject notwithstanding, we have identified a few measures to broaden the reach of this journal. We expect to see those take shape in the next few months. Given this distinctive nature of this journal, we request the readers to drop us a note to share their views.

Drops and droplets take the centre stage in this issue. According to a paper in this issue, a drop is defined as “a small mass of liquid, bounded completely or nearly completely by free surfaces by virtue of surface/interfacial forces”. A droplet, they say, is “a diminutive drop that is less than 0.5 mm in size”. As we see in this issue, there are many phenomena and applications that warrant serious study of droplets. And there are also many challenges in such studies. I thank Prof. Saptarshi Basu for guest-editing this issue and all the authors for devoting their time. What you find here may be a droplet in the ocean of knowledge on this topic. But surely every droplet counts!