As the Editor-in-Chief of Manufacturing Review, I am excited by the potential of this journal and also am aware of the many responsibilities that are involved in the holding of this post in order for the potential of the journal to be realised.

Manufacturing in general plays a significant part in the lives of all of us. Although many of us still are experiencing the economic recession, advances in manufacturing technology may be able to help in turning around the current situation. Indeed, we probably need another revolution in manufacturing if some of our present serious problems can be solved. It is not a surprise that many funding bodies and industries have now started to invest heavily in manufacturing research and innovation, although public funding in general has been cut in many places. Many potentially exciting outcomes can be seen from the current driving momentum in manufacturing research. At the same time, as a manufacturing research professional, I feel the same as many colleagues in this community: we all have a responsibility to maximise the impact of our research in order to ensure that the money spent on the research is well justified. In this sense, disseminating the knowledge and ideas generated from such funded research through an effective and efficient channel is especially important.

As a Research Fellow myself, working in a laboratory for research in metal forming for several years back to the 1990s, with Professor Raj Balendra, a serious professional in metal forming research, prior to receiving my lectureship at the University of Strathclyde, I gained a significant benefit from being able to access some excellent manufacturing journals such as Journal of Materials Processing Technology and International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture, edited respectively by two great friends of mine as well as two great academics, Professor Frank Travis and Professor Trevor Dean. Beginning from the early of 2000s, I also started enjoying a large amount of the information from many sources such as journal/conference publications, books, magazines, dedicated web-sites, etc., thanks to significant advances in information technology such as the Internet. At the same time, I also lost much time, since a significant effort is often needed to gather and assess relevant items of information. The researchers in my team certainly feel the same way: when one considers that a research student may need 5 or 6 months to deliver a good literature-review report in order to cover a large amount of relevant information, it is inevitable that we should now be implementing a more efficient means of accomplishing this essential task. In this context, the Manufacturing Review is not "just another journal" to add more burdens to our researchers, but is a serious contribution to the filling of the gap to address the serious issue I mention here.

Manufacturing Review, as an international forum focused on high-level review in manufacturing, could promote the dissemination of valuable experience and timely important and exciting ideas on manufacturing, from very experienced researchers, research leaders and leading industrialists. Considering that we are living in a world of fast development and rapid changes and of constant need of information for manufacturing research itself, and the need to undertake critical review, continuously, on various topics, on the development achieved and on the direction in which we are heading, this journal can play an important role. In this respect, myself, Associate Editors and all members of the Editorial Board would also like to emphasize the additional value of the contributions submitted to the journal that include an input from industry.

At the same time, we would also encourage the submission of original research articles to this journal that are supported by considerable review and remarks on worthwhile future development. Compared to what was done in manufacturing research twenty years ago, the consideration of what we do, why we do it, who is going to be influenced, and who is going to use the research results, etc. currently, probably has a much stronger influence on our decisions in research than before. Therefore, critical thinking on these issues is very important to our research life. I would expect that these considerations will be reflected in the submission of original research articles.

When EDP Sciences decided to launch this journal and to deliver it as an open-access publication I strongly supported the idea. Open-access journal publication has now become one of the powerful mechanisms for achieving better publicity/impact for research and greater benefits to the public, who have the right to freely access the information of research that is publically-funded. Recent moves by some research funding bodies such as RCUK and UK EPSRC on access to research outputs is a strong indication of such a requirement for publically-funded research. The position statement from RCUK covered two aspects of the changing publication landscape: Author-pays publishing and Self-archiving. Manufacturing Review, certainly, timely addresses this trend/change of/to the publication of the publicly-funded research.

As an international peer-reviewed journal, rigorous quality assurance will be the core agenda of the editors/editorial board of this journal. This will be achieved through an effective and robust peer-review mechanism. Besides using a standard, proven and popularly used Editorial Management System, Manufacturing Review does have its own questionnaires for the reviewers assigned to a submitted contribution. Among standard questions normally asked on a scientific journal contribution, the quality of the contribution is particularly required to be checked by the reviewers. Other criteria for considering for a possible publication include the influences and uses of the research findings, which authors will have to state and explain in their contribution(s). As the Editor-in-Chief, I will be working together with Associate Editors and all members of the Editorial Board to ensure that a high-quality journal is being delivered. At the same time, we will be enforcing a fair assessment on the contributions submitted. Thankfully, Manufacturing Review has assembled a team of very experienced experts in manufacturing research, journal publications and peer-review. In fact, our editorial board has many internationally recognised leading experts in manufacturing research who have strong influences on current manufacturing research agendas, both regionally and internationally. Therefore, I believe that their views on submitted contributions will benefit the contributors themselves. Their willingness to spend their precious time serving authors and readers of this journal should be highly appreciated.

Besides standard publications, I and all Associate Editors welcome suggestions on hot-topics in manufacturing to be reviewed, albeit that the content coverage of the journal is very broad. In addition to working closely with other editors and all members of the editorial board, I would also like to listen to contributors’ views on the journal coverage and its direction, as well as its review process. I believe that we can make this forum grow healthfully, and become more influential and highly beneficial, if we all care about it and make effort to improve it.

© Yi Qin, published by EDP Sciences, 2013