Eye has developed and grown significantly under the leadership of Professor Ian Rennie. Incredibly Professor Rennie has been editor of Eye for over 12 years. During this time he has guided the journal into the electronic age and forged a partnership with Nature Publishing Group. This has enabled the journal to cope with an exponential increase in submissions. Accordingly the impact factor of Eye has increased year on year. All fellows and members of the Royal College of Ophthalmology owe Professor Rennie a great debt of gratitude for the diligent service he has given to Eye for so many years. This has enabled Eye to mature as a significant resource for the Royal College of Ophthalmology and ophthalmologists worldwide.

I therefore feel very honoured to be appointed as the new editor of Eye and to follow in Professor Rennie's footsteps. My goal as Editor will be to continue to develop Eye as a scientific journal which provides the practising ophthalmologist with information on the latest clinical and laboratory-based research. I hope to increase its impact factor, readability and worldwide circulation. This is a tough challenge in the crowded field of ophthalmic publications but I believe achievable with the support (and hard work) of the editorial board, reviewers and publishing staff at Nature Publishing Group.

To help achieve these goals I immediately plan to increase the size of the editorial board with the aim of speeding up the review process. Eye could not function without the strenuous efforts of the editorial board and the many unseen reviewers who give so freely of their time. In the future I hope to more publicly acknowledge these unseen heroes. For authors we hope to give a more speedy review process.

Competition to have an article accepted for Eye is fiercer than ever. Therefore to be successful, submissions need to be novel, well written, grammatically correct and submitted as per the journal's guidelines. We encourage submissions by authors from non-English speaking countries and plan to offer editorial support to help publish their work in English.

We want to know what the readership would like to see as new developments within the journal. Therefore, we will be sending out a questionnaire in 2008 to gauge stakeholders' opinion. I hope you can respond and help the editorial board shape the future of the journal.

I am excited at the challenges ahead. The goal is to make Eye your first choice for submitting your best work and a journal you choose to read regularly.