Editorial

This issue marks the start of my third year as Editor of Journal of Quaternary Science and I want to take the opportunity to provide abrief update on the journal. Two years ago the Editorial Advisory Board agreed to a series of changes to the way the journal operates,mindful of significant year-on-year increases in submissions, in order to increase publication speeds (on-line and print), to enhancethe review process, and above all to promote further the journal as a leading publisher of world-class Quaternary science.We have addressed publication times in several ways. First, we have implemented a shorter word limit for research papers (7000

words) and changed the format for our Rapid Communications (2000 words, four figures). Second, we introduced changes to the lay-out of the journal tomake best use of space, including promoting the greater use of supplementary information on-line. Third, we havesignificantly shortened the time from acceptance to on-line publication of papers. Fourth, we continue to work hard with our EditorialAdvisory Board and our reviewers to ensure prompt turn-around of papers and constructive reviews.The success of these changes are now being seen in more rapid response times. For a typical research paper submitted today, the

time to first decision is 47 days on average and to final decision is 70 days on average. The time from acceptance to on-line publicationis now about four weeks and almost half of the papers we now publish use supplementary information as a way to enhance theirresearch.Our Rapid Communications are increasing in number and we want to see more of these in the future. Subject to the demands of

review, these can be published extremely quickly and often within only a fewmonths of submission. Although we no longer routinelyconsider special issues, the journal is interested in high quality themed collections of two to four papers on a coherent topic.Moreover, the on-line catalogue of back issues provides opportunities to combine new and previously published material fromJournal of Quaternary Science that recognise the long-term significance of benchmark publications. If you are interested in exploringthese possibilities, please do contact myself or one of the Associate Editors.Much of the success of the journal is based on the hard work of my co-editors Chris Turney and Jason Briner, members of the

Editorial Advisory Board and the excellent support of reviewers - a big thank you to all!. I am also delighted to welcome six newmembers to the Editorial Advisory Board: Professor Graeme Barker (University of Cambridge), Professor Ian Hall (Cardiff University),Professor JuliaLee-Thorpe (University of Oxford), Professor Hans Renssen (University of Amsterdam), Professor Jim Rose (University ofLondon) and Dr Yongqiang Zong (The University of Hong Kong).One of the pleasures of being Editor of this journal is having early sight of excellent science and as I look forward I can see that we

have some terrific research that will be published in the next few issues. I want to draw attention to Hijma et al. (2012, this issue) on‘‘Pleistocene Rhine-Thames landscapes: geological background for hominid occupation of the southern North Sea region’’ whichprovides a major review of landscape evolution and related taphonomical changes, visualised in maps for critical periods of thePleistocene. This paper is an example of longer, review-type articles that the journal considers for publication occasionally, on a case-by-case basis. In the future, if readers have a potential paper of this nature, please contact one of the Editors to explore the possibility ofpublishing it in Journal of Quaternary Science.To conclude, I speak on behalf of the editorial teamwhen I say how excited we are about the future.We are committed to providing

a journal that publishes top quality Quaternary science and continues to be of broad interest to our readers.

ReferenceHijmaMP, Cohen KM, RobroeksW,Westerhoff WE, Busschers FS. (2012). Pleistocene Rhine-Thames landscapes: geological background for hominin

occupation of the southern North Sea region. Journal of Quaternary Science 27: 17–39.

Antony LongEditor in Chief

Department of GeographyDurham University, UK

JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE (2012) 27(1) 1 ISSN 0267-8179. DOI: 10.1002/jqs.1565

Copyright � 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.