Working as an Editor-in-Chief is an honourable but much more a responsible job. I am proud that I have done that business – embedded in a marvellous working group – since Volume 89 (2009) when Senckenbergiana lethaea changed its name to Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments, published by Springer. But editorial work is not always fun and you might have suffered, indeed if so I regret it, but it was necessary. Nobody is infallible, and I must admit that there have been some small problems, from time to time. My team and I have always been solicitous to respect you as the author you are. And obviously we have not been that bad as in 2020, 92% of authors rated their publishing experience with Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments as excellent or good and we received the “Editorial excellence” evaluation, which is an incentive and engagement at the same time. All in all, the editorial adventure has lasted 14 years! But now, it is time to say goodbye and hand over to the successor team as some other challenges are waiting for me (Fig. 1). From the Editor`s view it is also a chance to reflect on the last 14 years and the challenges we had to overcome.

Fig. 1
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The Editor-in-Chief at field work in the southern Gobi (Mongolia) in 2019 (Photo by Sersmaa Gonchigdor)

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At the very beginning it was a real challenge in order to find a position within the range of palaeontological journals. We have had a scientific concept with a special focus on the interaction of palaeoenvironments and fossils which at the time was very unusual. In the first year we published two double issues due to the limited manuscripts we received, but in the second year (2010) we were able to publish 4 issues (already with two special issues) and the number of contributions/published pages has increased since then. Although some of what lies between the first issue and the most recent issue has changed – with the times, with evolving science and with publishing technology, the publication policy of the journal never changed: Geoscientists study the complex “Earth system” in order to get a better understanding of individual components, such as fossils, as well as the system as a whole. Basic science requires fundamental knowledge on organisms, independently where they are coming from or whether the studied organisms are “sexy” enough and/or useful for applied sciences (Königshof 2020). For instance, the reasons we know so much on climate changes and dramatic biological turnovers in the past – much more than we did 100 years ago, is based on the detailed study of organisms of the past and present in combination with an improved methodology (e.g. geochemical and geophysical methods). This approach is still successful, which is also documented in the citation reports of papers published in three Special Issues (e.g. Mottequin et al. 2017, Aretz and Corradini 2021, Hartenfels et al. 2022), among others.

Recently, we have been confronted with politically driven problems due to the Russian war of aggression. My position was and is that editorial decisions should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit and publish should not be determined by the policies of governments or any other agencies beyond the journal itself, which is absolutely in line with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) standards, which the journal supports. Thus, it might be that some papers also dealing with interesting regions or scientific topics, which are not yet in the absolute scientific focus (we have published special issues, special series and original papers) but represent areas which may become of international interest in the near future (Fig. 1). In that respect we cannot expect that those publications will be cited very often, but we should provide a platform to publish scientific data of excellent quality also from regions/countries which are under-represented. Otherwise we would go back to scientific neocolonialism. Furthermore, scientific collaboration particularly with developing countries requires from my point of view official statements to conduct field work and later data management, which means that all material (e.g. fossils) should be held in domestic collections as long as no other agreements have been made and the collections are accessible and provide profound collection standards. In that respect I would call for more rigorous journal guidelines and education on research ethics, greater enforcement of fossil laws, and sanctions against those involved in unethical practices, but I am optimistic as this is already a topic under discussion within the scientific community and beyond.

Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments is a multidimensional gateway for the exploration of scientific discoveries and new research in geological and palaeontological sciences. The journal has been established over the last decades and includes various types of articles such as short communications, review articles, research articles, editorials, among others and other supplementary articles. “Special issues” and “Special series” increase the attraction for authors to publish contributions in this journal. Competitiveness became more and more important in the recent decades, as expressed by the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), which is, by far, the most discussed bibliometric indicator. There is no doubt that the JIF has had various effects on the scientific ecosystem and has been also widely dissected and debated by scholars of every disciplinary orientation (see Lariviere and Sugimoto, 2018). Meanwhile, alternative journal-based indicators were developed and most likely future developments in journal indicators will come, which finally may help or not to evaluate the quality of scientific papers and even scientists. The present impact factor of Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments is 1,736 and the journal has achieved a remarkable position in the frame of other palaeontological journals and based on that success it is easy to hand on to the successor team.

Looking forward is also an important aspect from my viewpoint and I am convinced that the successor team of Sinje Weber (Managing Editor) and Dieter Uhl (Editor-in-Chief) (Senckenberg – Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Frankfurt/M) knows how they can best continue and evolve the journal with the research community and its needs, and share scientific results with the scientific community worldwide. Finally, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the Editorial Board members, the Managing Editor, Sinje Weber in particular, the entire Springer team, and the huge number of reviewers for their service over the last 14 years! It was the reviewers` expertise and willingness to invest precious time that assured the high quality of this journal and it was the huge number of authors, who submitted manuscripts of international interest. Thank you also for the messages with acknowledgements and encouragements which I have received from you during the last years. Furthermore, I would like to thank the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research for their unquestionable confidence to handle and edit this journal. Thank you all again!

Peter

(Frankfurt am Main, Germany, December 2022)