You say goodbye and I say hello.

A s outgoing Chief Editor of the European Respiratory Review (ERR), I am delighted to be able to share with you some facts and thoughts in this farewell editorial. Over the last 4 yrs, the new ERR has grown and matured thanks to the leadership of an international editorial board and the outstanding support of the Publications Office. In this new era for the ERR, our aim was to further enhance scientific content and to form and develop strong links with the flagship publication of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), the European Respiratory Journal (ERJ), in order to establish the ERR as a companion to the ERJ, without providing competition with the other ERS publications (European Respiratory Monograph and Breathe) [1]. In 2009, the format of the ERR was significantly restructured and the important decision was made to publish sponsored content, as well as spontaneously submitted original material [2, 3]. Importantly, all the articles comprising this new format for the ERR have undergone peer review so that the highest scientific standards are maintained. The past 4 yrs have allowed us to be at the forefront of respiratory clinical education and research with cutting-edge publications in various fields ranging from common diseases that represent a major burden to respiratory health (such as asthma [4–8], chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [9], respiratory infections, tuberculosis [10], sleep-related disorders, venous thromboembolic disease and lung cancer), to much rarer but challenging conditions (including pulmonary hypertension [11, 12] and interstitial lung diseases [13–15]). In addition, regular editorials, updates, case reports, correspondences and book reviews have highlighted the dynamism of international pulmonary research, education and care [16]. The ERR was recently accepted for indexing in Medline and our open-access strategy has allowed better visibility and dissemination of articles. Indeed, all ERR articles are freely available to all web users, as the website on which they are hosted is open access, http://err.ersjournals.com (figs 1 and 2).