Editorial Commentary

WIREs is a WINNER

Agroup of us met with the editorial managementof John Wiley and Sons in Hoboken, NJ in

December of 2005. The original idea was to create anEncyclopedia of Computational Statistics analogousto Wiley’s highly successful Encyclopedia of Statisti-cal Sciences. After we signed a contract to developthe Encyclopedia, we met Wiley-Blackwell Vice Pres-ident and Publisher Sean Pidgeon. Sean floated theidea of Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs) tous. We agreed that the WIREs concept was intriguingand after a number of months of soliciting manuscriptsour new journal was launched officially in July-August2009 titled as Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Com-putational Statistics. As earlier readers will know,WIREs Computational Statistics is a hybrid reviewpublication that is by invitation only, is refereed, andpublishes in color as needed. Over time, its content willbuild to provide an encyclopedic coverage of the field.WIREs Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology andWIREs Systems Biology and Medicine also began pub-lication in 2009, while WIREs Climate Change andWIREs Cognitive Science joined the stable in January2010. A further six WIREs titles are in development.

Based largely on these three companion journals,the WIREs series has recently won three awards fromthe Professional and Scholarly Publishing Divisionof the Association of American Publishers. TheAmerican Publishers Awards for Professional andScholarly Excellence (PROSE Awards) named theWIREs as joint winner of the 2010 R.R. HawkinsAward, the association’s top prize, established in1976 to recognize outstanding scholarly works in alldisciplines of the arts and sciences. WIREs becomesthe first e-product to have won the top prize in theaward’s 34-year history. The R. R. Hawkins Award isthe closest thing in the scholarly publishing industry toan Oscar. The WIREs series also received the prize in

DOI: 10.1002/wics.85

the eProduct/Best Multidiscipline Platform categoryand received the PROSE Award for Excellence inReference Works.

In receiving the awards, Sean Pidgeon said, ‘Inbestowing the Hawkins award on the Wiley Inter-disciplinary Reviews, the PROSE judges have givena powerful vote for the importance of interdisci-plinary thinking in academic research, and the criticalrole of scholarly publishing in assisting this collab-orative endeavor. The WIREs are unique hybridpublications that emphasize the importance of inter-disciplinary collaboration in research and education.Each title provides authoritative, encyclopedic cover-age of diverse scientific fields with high-quality reviewscommissioned from expert contributors from acrossthe globe. These articles are fully citable and eligiblefor abstracting, indexing and ISI ranking.’

We are proud and elated that our effortswith WIREs Computational Statistics have playeda significant part in earning these prestigious awardsfor the WIREs program. We now have more than120 submissions and are looking forward to a brightfuture for our journal.

Edward J. WegmanDepartment of Computational and Data Sciences,George Mason UniversityFairfax, VA, USA

Yasmin H. SaidDepartment of Computational and Data Sciences,George Mason UniversityFairfax, VA, USA

David W. ScottDepartment of Statistics, Rice UniversityHouston, TX, USA

Volume 2, March/Apr i l 2010 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 127