Two decades with Ecography: a farewell and a new beginning

Abstract

After two decades of service to Ecography – first as a subject editor, then as deputy Editor-in-Chief, and for the past twelve years as Editor-in-Chief – the time has come for me to bid farewell. My connection with the journal stretches even further back: Ecography was one of the first outlets where I published work from my PhD. At that time, manuscripts were submitted by printing multiple copies and sending them by post to Linus Svensson, who for several decades loyally served the Nordic Society Oikos – the society that publishes Ecography – before his recent retirement. From the editorial office, Linus would then mail the manuscripts to reviewers together with a request to review the paper. Since reviewers could decline, the process could take several months just to manage submissions, and it was not unusual for a paper to take several years from submission to publication. First as an author, and later as an editor, I strongly advocated for reform, and as digitisation advanced, we finally arrived at the streamlined submission process we use today.