Comments from the departing Editor

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Editorial
Comments from the departing Editor
My term as an Editor comes to an end with last issue
of 2010. I was fortunate to inherit a successful journal
from my predecessor, Sir Brian Heap FRS and I am
delighted to be able to pass the role into the very
capable hands of Dame Linda Partridge FRS.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B has
some very special and unusual features that I have
come to understand better and tried to build upon
during my term as an Editor. It is a general biology
journal and so in theory covers all areas of the biologi-
cal sciences. At various points in the journal’s history,
the focus has been narrowed to concentrate on certain
subjects (e.g. neurobiology), and there have been peri-
odic attempts to make it primarily a reviews journal.
Both of these tend to place us in direct competition
with some very successful subject-specific or review
journals. While I am sure we could compete success-
fully if we chose to do so, an alternative strategy is to
build a distinctive niche for the journal, ideally one
that builds on existing strengths.
One key feature of the journal is that it automatic-
ally receives papers arising from the Royal Society
Discussion Meetings. These are the flagship scientific
meetings held by the Society, are generally of 2 days
duration, cover any area of science, but aim to high-
light the latest developments in a subject and to
stimulate discussion among those attending. There
has recently been strong encouragement for interdis-
ciplinary subjects and emerging areas for Discussion
Meetings. Issues of Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society B arising in this way tend to be similar
to edited books, but have the added advantage of
being able to incorporate the interactions that come
from discussions among experts at the meeting, as
well as having a relatively rapid publication time.
Some of these issues and the papers they contain
have become classic references. Most people who
have been involved in putting a meeting together and
then producing the published issue have also found it
to be an extremely rewarding process. In recent
years, therefore, we have tried to build on the model
created by the Discussion Meeting issues.
We now invite proposals for themed issues similar
to Discussion Meeting issues, but without the meet-
ing. They should bring together the best and latest
science in some emerging or important areas of
biology and the life sciences. The contents and focus
are devised, compiled and edited by guest editors
who have identified the topic and who then invite the
authors. They put together a themed issue that
should be a genuine contribution to the establishment,
growth or integration of the topic. In this way, the jour-
nal serves the research community by producing issues
that rapidly provide a comprehensive resource to
establish and cement new areas of science.
Ideally, the theme issues should be across the bio-
logical sciences. Achieving the full spread of topics
has proved difficult. First, our recent history means
that researchers in some areas of biology are more fa-
miliar with the journal than others. Both neurosciences,
and ecology and evolution, are subjects where we
have had a stream of high-quality proposals. We have
found it more difficult to attract the same interest
from cell and molecular biology, and from the general
area of health and disease. Despite a few very success-
ful issues in these topics [1,2], we have so far found
them difficult to grow. It seems that as well as the influ-
ence of recent history, there are different publishing
norms in these areas. The rapidly growing areas of
cell and molecular biology and of much of biomedi-
cine, mean these subjects are often moving very
rapidly. Researchers expect and achieve very rapid
publication times. As new findings, tools and tech-
niques emerge at a high rate, so do new research
findings, but with the inevitable corollary that much
of their research also goes out of date more quickly.
Some areas are, therefore, intrinsically more difficult
to incorporate in the model we have developed for
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B,
though this does not mean we should give up on the
goal to cover all areas. We have had a few recent and
very successful issues from these topics and I am con-
fident that these can serve as exemplars that should
encourage more in the coming years. Another achieve-
ment has been a number of recent issues that include
interdisciplinary topics in both environmental and
social sciences.
Two significant events strongly influenced the jour-
nal during my editorship. The 350th anniversary of the
Royal Society was an opportunity to celebrate the long
history of the journal and its role in supporting the
science for which the Society is responsible. We
decided to produce an issue that looked forward
more than backwards [3], and this allowed us the
opportunity to bring in some new areas, such as econ-
omics and social sciences [4], as well as to highlight
exciting new areas that are both societally relevant
and scientifically tractable [5–7]. In 2009–2010 we
also celebrated the 200th anniversary of Charles
Darwin’s birth, and the 150th anniversary of the pub-
lication of the Origin of Species. We could not miss the
opportunity to celebrate the contribution of the one of
the world’s most influential scientists, and to highlight
recent advances in the many areas of evolutionary
biology and genetics that have grown from Darwin’s
ideas [8].
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2011) 366, 3–4
doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0305
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A final feature of the journal is the excellent support
provided by the Royal Society’s Publications staff. I
thank them for their efficiency, professionalism and
ingenuity that have made it a pleasure and a privilege
to be an Editor. My thanks in particular go to James
Joseph and Claire Rawlinson who have been the Pub-
lications Editors during my term. Also many thanks to
the members of the Editorial Board for their hard
work, good advice and guidance.
Georgina M. Mace*2011
Imperial College London, London, UK
*g.mace@imperial.ac.uk
REFERENCES
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4 G. M. Mace Editorial
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