The European Journal of Neuroscience from 1997 to 2008

“I was the third Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Neuroscience (EJN) to be appointed, succeeding Michel Cuénod, whom I knew well as a friend and colleague both when he was Secretary General of the Human Science Frontier Program and by serving as EJN Receiving Editor (behavioural and cognitive neuroscience) during his Editorship. As Michel mentioned in his earlier editorial, EJN was then being published by Oxford University Press (OUP) which, despite his repeated well-justified requests, refused to allow the journal to expand by increasing the number of published pages until the initial investment in establishing EJN was viewed as recouped. At that point in 1997, The European Neuroscience Association (ENA, which transitioned to FENS in 1998) had received no revenue from the journal, contrary to the clear expectations that it would strengthen the financial underpinnings of FENS’ scientific and educational mission, as was the case for other societies and their journals (e.g. IBRO and SfN). During the process of transferring the editorship to me, FENS decided to invite competitive bids from other publishers rather than simply renew the contract with OUP under such suboptimal conditions. The result of this competition was that Blackwell, the renowned academic society journal publisher, became the new publisher of EJN.”

To view the full editorial, pleaae check the EJN website.