Exciting new times

It is fair to write that the world is a very different place now to when I was appointed to my current role as Editor-in-Chief in December 2004. I made various pledges then, which I will come to further down this page, but in my own mind was the overarching commitment that I would stay in the job until I was personally satisfied that I had done as much as I could to secure the future of the BDJ and its associated publications.¹ That time has come and I intend to retire from the position on 31 December 2024.

Obviously, this means that there will be a vacancy which will be advertised in due course. One possibility under consideration is that the role may be divided because of the way in which the BDJ and its now Portfolio of titles has developed and evolved. Like the world, the publishing landscape and the journal, the job has changed hugely. The details of the new arrangements are currently being discussed between the BDA (the owners) and Springer Nature (SN) (the publishers), but it is possible that one role will be an editor responsible for the BDJ with the other having a responsibility for the overview of the Portfolio as a whole.

This important and exciting development comes about primarily because of the success of each of the individual titles in respect of their target audiences, but also the need to clarify the governance, objectives and performance for each of them and their inter-related position within the Portfolio. The 2004:2024 comparison of what was then best referred to as a collection of publications is as follows BDJ:BDJ, BDA News:BDJ In Practice, Vital:BDJ Team, Launchpad:BDJ Student, with Evidence-Based Dentistry maintaining its title but accommodating a far more independent position and BDJ Open being entirely new, having been crafted and launched in 2015.

Until now, the BDJ Editorial Board has ostensibly had the responsibility for overseeing all the titles under the direction of the Editor-in-Chief. My view was that in an increasingly complex world of online publishing and associated detailed management, this needed to change. To test this out in the last few years, we have discussed the matter with the BDJ Editorial Board and taken gradual steps towards achieving a new perspective. One consequence was that in November 2023, we held the inaugural meeting of the Portfolio Editorial Board consisting of the editors and associate editors of all the publications. The intention was, and is, to provide a forum for the exchange of news, progress and wishes for the individual publications and to help weave a coordinated and comprehensive Portfolio-wide approach to content. From the outset this was clearly a successful innovation with exchanges of ideas, contacts and plans meaning not only future consistency but also potential new collaborations. This, in turn, will now allow an editor of the BDJ and its Editorial Board members to give greater focus of their time and energy on this journal alone, thereby creating clearer objectives and targets. Concomitantly, there will be a need for oversight of the development of the Portfolio as an entity, which is where discussions are being held to determine the best route forward. A post or posts will be advertised in due course in the usual way with plenty of notice for intending applicants.

I will of course be sad to leave the BDJ and Portfolio after so many years but also reassured that the road map for the future will be a positive and exciting one.

Back in 2004, I pledged to ‘take care' of the journal.¹ The BDA was in a sorry place that year, having experienced a serious financial crisis and facing the need to make a considerable number of redundancies and other cuts. It was a time of great uncertainty and confusion as to how best to steady the ship and secure members' assets but also their loyalty. In the event, as we now know, the Association not only survived but has prospered where other organisations of that era have either diminished or entirely disappeared, a fact that is often overlooked.

The plan for greater involvement in the publications by, then, Nature Publishing, now Springer Nature was not only a welcome outstretched helping hand but what has become an enduringly strong partnership that has unquestionably enabled the journals to flourish to their current status. Not least is the value of SN's global knowledge of open access publishing which has propelled the rapid rise of BDJ Open but which has also enabled the increase of similar content in the BDJ, allowing both to excel in this new world of digital communication. It might well be regarded as an example of good things coming out of a bad situation.

I will of course be sad to leave the BDJ and Portfolio after so many years but also reassured that the road map for the future will be a positive and exciting one. I look forward very much to learning who will have privilege of steering that progress.