Doing what we do best, only better

As current editor-in-chief and executive editor for the Journal of Cell Biology, we are writing to describe our shared vision for the journal: To enable the swift and painless publication of advances and thought-provoking ideas in a range of fields that inform cell biology, and to promote this high-quality work as broadly as possible in our community. Throughout 2015, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the JCB by looking back on sixty years of groundbreaking cell biology. Now, we look forward to describe our vision for the JCB and share some of the initiatives we have put into effect and those we hope to implement in the future. One of the greatest strengths of the JCB is its engaged editorial board. As active, prominent scientists, our board members are committed to making the publishing process as painless as possible for our authors with the ultimate goal of optimizing the quality and impact of our publications. Our board members, together with our outstanding professional in-house scientific editors , work to identify the most impactful experiments to address reviewers' comments and ensure consistent standards across all of our decisions. We know that authors want to share their work with the community quickly; therefore, if our editors feel a paper needs more than three months worth of work for the JCB, we will reject the paper and urge the authors to submit elsewhere. In many respects, a journal is only as good as the scientists who review its manuscripts. To capture the broad scope of cell biology, in 2015 we made significant changes to the editorial board. Twenty-eight new members were recruited from diverse fields, including metabolism, stem cell biology, immu-nology, and developmental biology. This represents the largest change to the editorial board since the journal's inception in 1955. As of today, nearly 30% of the JCB board is composed of new members. Eighteen countries are represented and roughly one third of our board members are women. We think that the infusion of new voices and diverse perspectives is vital to the health and success of the journal, and we intend to continue welcoming new members and increasing the diversity of the board in the coming years. All of our decisions—including editorial board make-up— are ultimately focused on one key goal: To serve our authors and the greater scientific community the best that we can. The JCB has a long history of author …