RSN editorial 2024

Abstract

The IET RSN journal has always published a significant number of Special Issues. In some cases, these have been based on the theme of a new technology or set of applications. In others, they have presented developments of the best papers from a particular conference. Both approaches have led to coherent, high-quality collections of papers that are easy to locate. In this rapidly-changing landscape of publications, we have taken the decision to continue and to grow such Special Issues and have appointed Professor Alessio Balleri to oversee this. We welcome proposals for Special Issues from potential Guest Editors but emphasise that papers in Special Issues will receive the same degree of review and scrutiny as regular papers. Open Access has become an increasingly popular means of handling the publication process. In partnership with Wiley, 27 of IET's hybrid journal programmes successfully transitioned to Gold OA in 2020. There are now 43 OA journals in the IET's portfolio, and the programme is expanding. Open Access is a model that serves researchers. The IET's wider commitment to Open Research/Open Science has been demonstrated through transitioning the IET journals to Open Access. Fully aligned with research funders' open access policies, and research funders make provision for Article Publication Charges (APCs) in their funding. Authors retain copyright and publish under a Creative Commons licence. The journal continues to focus on quality and scientific rigour while growing our published output. Publishing your work Open Access means that anyone can read and share your work freely. It delivers better and faster impact for authors—22 million full-text downloads across the portfolio since the IET journals were transferred to IET Research Hub on Wiley Online Library on 1 January 2021. Open access is access without barriers not just for the scientific community but also for journalists, policy makers, businesses, general public and therefore offering societal benefits and economic boost. Open Access results in faster dissemination to the widest possible audience and more extensive re-use of new ideas and knowledge. Open access leads to more readers, potential collaborators, citations and more recognition. On average, Open Access articles are cited 60% more than subscription articles. The editors of the RSN journal have always striven to maintain a reputation for rapid processing and publication. Statistics for Q1–Q3 of 2023 show that the average time from submission to first decision is 29 days and from acceptance to e-first publication is 25 days. This achievement has depended on rapid responses by our reviewers, and we express our gratitude to the reviewers for their time, expertise and hard work in refereeing papers and maintaining the reputation of the journal, both for quality and for rapid publication. This is an essential part of the publication process, but necessarily the reviewers must remain anonymous. This editorial is one place where we can acknowledge their contribution and record our thanks to them. No new data were created or analysed during this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.

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