Editorial

As of January 2018, Professor Anders Vahlquist will end his term as Editor-in-Chief of Acta Dermato-Venereologica (ActaDV). He will certainly be missed; firstly, by all of us who have had the joy of working with him, but also for all his good ideas and brilliant suggestions, which have made ActaDV one of the top international journals in the field of dermatology. He has guided the journal through many major developments: open access; a doubling of the impact factor; a new design for the journal and website; and, finally, burying the paper version of the journal, to mention only a few. We are grateful for his dedication to ActaDV over the last 19 years, and we wish him a long and happy retirement.

Fig. 1 shows a ”timeline” of the journal, starting in 1987 when Editorial Manager Agneta Andersson began working with the Editor-in-Chief of ActaDV, Professor Lennart Juhlin. Professor Artur Schmidtchen, the new Editor-in-Chief, was introduced to readers in an earlier editorial (1).

The Editorial Board remains essentially unchanged, but a new position, Deputy Editor, has been introduced. The Deputy Editors will assist the Editor-in-Chief in making a first evaluation of incoming papers, deciding whether they are suitable to enter the peer review process and, if so, which of the Section Editors should be responsible for this process, eventually leading to a decision about acceptance for publication.

Four Deputy Editors have been appointed; two of them, Professors Lone Skov and Magnus Lindberg, have previously served as Section Editors and are already involved with the work of ActaDV. They were introduced in earlier editorials (2, 3). In addition, we welcome Professors Anette Bygum and Kaisa Tasanen-Määttä as new Deputy Editors. 

• Dr Bygum is Clinical Professor, Senior Consultant and Head of Research in Dermatology at Odense University Hospital and University of Southern Denmark. She received her basic training in medicine (MD 1994), later became a specialist in Dermatology and Venereology (2001) and finished her PhD studies (DMSci 2015) at the same university in Odense. Her special research interests are in the fields of hereditary angioedema and genodermatoses. She is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and has supervised many PhD and postgraduate research students.
• Dr Tasanen-Määttä is Professor and Chair, Department of Dermatology, University of Oulu, Finland. She received her basic training in medicine in Oulu (MD 1989) and presented her PhD thesis in 1992 at the Department of Medical Biochemistry. She became specialist in Dermatology and Venereology in 2001 and has worked at Oulu University Hospital, as both Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Chief Physician, also visiting Munster and Freiburg as a scientist. Her special research interest is in autoimmune and genetic bullous disorders. Dr Tasanan-Määttä has published nearly 100 papers and supervised many PhD students.

Fig. 2 shows the whole of our Editorial Board as of January 2018. Together, we aim to continue to guide ActaDV through the challenges of modern scientific publishing and to compete successfully with other journals.

We will, of course, continue to be an immediate Open Access journal, freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. We believe that access to knowledge is a universal human right.

ActaDV is owned by the non-profit organization Society for Publication of Acta Dermato-Venereologica, which means that we are free from any commercial publisher, and therefore are fortunate to be able to make decisions quickly and take new directions whenever needed.

One of the newest changes to our website is the Discussion forum added to each article. We intend to create a safe and civilized space to stimulate exchange of academic ideas and opinions. After creating an account each reader will be able to engage in discussion with authors and comment on recent papers.

News of more developments is in preparation, e.g. the introduction of Lay abstracts; please visit our website now and then to keep up to date with the latest news.