New Editorial Board Installed

At the Sixth Annual Business Meeting of the EAHN in London, on Saturday 12 February 2011, it was decided to set up an entirely new Editorial Board to oversee and develop the strategy, content, and vision of the network’s different publications (the website, the Newsletter, and a planned peer-reviewed annual publication). A small committee was installed to search and eventually appoint the members of this new board. In September, the deed was done.

The search committee consisted of four members—Reto Geiser (then ETH Zürich, now Rice University, Houston, Texas), Alona Nitzan-Shiftan (Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa), and Lex Hermans (Newsletter editor)—and was chaired by the Treasurer, Tom Avermaete. The committee’s principal task was to ensure that board members have diverse and complementary expertise, are well-connected in their field, and are prepared to participate actively in all tasks of the board, both in order to define the content and profile of the publications as well as to perform executive tasks related to the publications. Also, the search committee had to keep in mind that the composition of the new Board should guarantee an outlook beyond the traditional centres of European academia.

To its call for applications, the committee received more than twenty reactions from relatively young, highly qualified applicants. This made selecting a lengthy process. After careful consideration, the committee decided to install the Editorial Board as follows:

Chairman
Maarten Delbeke (Universities of Ghent and Leiden)

Members
Daniel Maudlin (University of Plymouth)
Belgin Turan Özkaya (Middle East Technical University, Ankara)
Panayiota Pyla (University of Cyprus, Nicosia)
Michelangelo Sabatino (University of Houston, Texas)

Members ex officio
Davide Deriu (Open Access Publishing)
Lex Hermans (Newsletter editor)
Josie Kane (Open Access Publishing)

As chairman of the board, Maarten will also preside over the Publications Committee, which will continue as an open platform at the annual business meetings.

The first priorities of the board will be to initiate the publication of an annual journal, and to assist the development of the website and the Newsletter. A key concern is the optimum integration of these different media, both in view of the services the EAHN wants to provide to its members, and of the allocation of the network’s limited resources.

In a sense, the Editorial Board hits the ground running, as Tom Avermaete, Maarten Delbeke, Davide Deriu, and Josie Kane recently have applied for a grant from the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) for the funding of an open access e-journal.