Farewell editorial

It has been a great honour, an invaluable learning experience and my personal pleasure to serve the international phonetic sciences community as Editor in Chief of Phonetica for the past 11 years. It is with a sense of optimism and excitement for the future of the journal that I now pass this role on to two excellent shepherds of the phonetic sciences, the new Phonetica co-Editors Benjamin Tucker and Richard Wright. Each brings impressive breadth, depth and creative enthusiasm to their new role. Their approach to curating Phonetica is grounded in their wide-ranging research expertise, their open-minded and inclusive perspective on phonetics, and is enhanced by their substantial prior editorial experience. I and the publisher are fortunate indeed to have them leading the journal from 2025 onward.

As I complete my term as Editor and officially hand over the reins to the new co-Editors, I will touch briefly on Phonetica’s journey under my stewardship (2014–2024 inclusive). When I began transitioning into my Editorial role in the final quarter of 2013, I benefitted from the invaluable guidance of Klaus Kohler, the outgoing Editor in Chief, especially during that final quarter of his extensive and dedicated service to Phonetica. He shared with me an appreciation of the journal’s long and distinguished history, having been in the portfolio of Karger Publishers since 1957, in the company of its older and more clinically-oriented sister publication Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica (founded 1947). When I agreed to take on its Editorship, I was asked by Professor Kohler and the Kargers to expand the diversity of Phonetica, among other things. I approached that goal from several perspectives. I systematically expanded the geographic diversity and gender balance of the scientific editorial team (Associate Editors and Board), as well as that of the authors and geographic origins of submitted manuscripts and published articles, and worked to similarly increase the global reach of the journal. With the assistance of the scientific editorial team, the range of sub-topics of communicative science of phonetics addressed in the journal was expanded as well (e.g., developmental processes, language change and variation). In addition, a new review article format was introduced in collaboration with Associate Editor Oliver Niebuhr: the Book Discussion. The aim of the Book Discussion is to reconsider a classic phonetics monograph in light of current theoretical issues and empirical findings, and to draw out the potential contributions of its enduring principles to new insights and further development of the field. I am pleased to see that this article type will continue in Phonetica’s future issues. Another new type of article, the Methodological Contribution, was recently also planned, in collaboration with Associate Editor Donald Derrick. The idea for this article type was inspired by an unusual but very promising submission we received that did not fit any of our existing article types. No Methodological Contribution has yet appeared in Phonetica’s pages as, unfortunately, the authors of that submission were ultimately unable to carry out the required structural and substantive changes to their manuscript. However, I note with pleasure that the new co-editors have independently developed their own idea for a new methodological article type which they will be launching. I am confident that these methodologically-focused articles will substantially enhance Phonetica’s contributions to phonetic research, and I look forward to seeing such papers appear in upcoming issues of the journal.

When I became Editor in 2014, I was also asked to increase the impact of the journal. With the assistance of my outstanding scientific editorial team, this was achieved through a range of efforts. We published several high-impact special issues on timely topics; we encouraged colleagues and especially junior scholars to contribute articles, leading to increased numbers and quality of submissions; and I successfully negotiated six Free Access Editor’s Choice articles per year, at no cost to the authors. Those efforts notably increased the number of accepted articles within my first few years as Editor, which led Karger Publishers to expand the number of issues published per year from four to six. The competitiveness of the acceptance process remained high, nonetheless, with only 35 % of submissions ultimately accepted for publication during my tenure, nearly always after one or more rounds of revision.

There were other noteworthy developments for Phonetica during my term. Most important among them was that midway through my period as Editor, Phonetica amicably and smoothly transferred publishers from Karger to De Gruyter, where it was subsumed into their well-respected line of books and journals in Linguistics. I am grateful to both publishing houses for making this transition an easy and positive experience, and for supporting me and the scientific editorial team throughout the process.

I have, in fact, many more people to thank for multiple facets of support during my term as Editor. Managing and publishing a high quality international scientific journal really does take a global village! I am truly fortunate to have had an outstanding scientific editorial team. I greatly appreciate the Associate Editors for their conscientious, thoughtful, unstintingly professional work, and for their support and collaboration with me as Editor throughout my tenure. Likewise, I feel fortunate to have had a great Editorial Board, who have offered expert advice and assistance whenever I have needed or asked for it. The administrative teams and office support staff at both publishers also have my deepest appreciation for their support throughout the years. I am especially grateful for the kind and supportive journal management provided by Sandra Braun and Alan Toothill at Karger Publishers. At DeGruyter, I am appreciative of the warm and supportive journal coordination and management that Magdalena Idzik and Megan Gough have given, as well as for Kumaran Rengaswamy’s editorial office support.

I will end by noting, above all, how very pleased and thankful I am that Benjamin Tucker and Richard Wright have stepped up as the new co-Editors, and that they have approached their roles with enthusiasm and inspired ideas for taking Phonetica forward. The journal and the publisher are lucky indeed to have them at the helm of the scientific editorial team, and I feel blessed to be able to relinquish the journal into such excellent and capable hands.