As promised, I announce some changes in the editorial process and in the editorial board of our journal.

The review will be guided by five very experienced section editors who will receive the manuscripts related to the topics belonging to their section:

  • general content, psychology, quality of life

  • basic research

  • general content, guidelines, grading systems

  • clinical research

  • physiotherapy, nursing, occupational therapy, reviews

This will further improve the quality of our review process. The reviewing itself will continue to be anonymous. All decision letters are finalised by myself and all correspondance with the authors will run through the editorial office in Antwerp.

The members of the executive committee are another group in the editorial board, as they represent a group of specialists with a lot of knowledge in different topics.

The list of general editorial board members has been updated, creating a good balance between expertise, availability and willingness to be involved in an active way in the running of the journal. I want to say a sincere thanks to all who have been helping us in the board and are being replaced now. Also a very big thanks to all reviewers, non board members, who help us evaluate the submissions. The web pages for reviewers are also being updated.

The instructions to authors have been changed, and the biggest change is the deletion of limit in word counts. However, authors are requested to avoid submitting very long manuscripts, which are often more difficult to read. This decision impacts the publishing process as we are receiving a substantial higher number of submissions each year now. But we accept that sometimes more words are needed to explain methods, results and discussions.

It is very difficult to find the requested number of reviewers, and the reason for the delay is explained in an email to the corresponding author.

The keywords that used to accompany each submission are being re-introduced.

The creation of the Spinal Cord: Series and Cases online only publication is being finalised now. Case reports, preliminary reports, one center studies in small samples, and manuscripts that require more extensive editing for international publication will be placed in Spinal Cord: Series and Cases.

I hope you like the changed front page as much as I do. The figures come from Spinal Cord: Series and Cases publications, and are choosen from manuscripts available every month.

Liesbet Knaepkens continues co-running the editorial office in Antwerp, Belgium.

Our contact person in NPG has again changed. We welcome Sohini Pavlovic and are building up our cooperation.

There is no overview of manuscripts in this editorial page, but have a look at the table of contents. You will again find high-quality manuscripts included, on topics that will interest you all. Again, a good example of the many aspects that constitute management of SCI.