Editorial

Abstract

From the Editor
In 2001, the Natural History Museum of Barcelona remodelled its journal Miscel·lània Zoològica as Animal Biodiversity and Conservation. One of the aims of this change was to obtain an impact factor, the index that characterises the international ranking of journals. This milestone was reached some years later, in 2012, having published 291 articles that have been cited in impact journals 1,626 times. Two of these papers have been cited more than 100 times.
We are now ready to take the next step forward. Our new challenge is to increase our impact factor so that Animal Biodiversity and Conservation is comparable with prestigious international journals in the field. To meet this objective we have assembled a team of editors with international recognition, and we will continue to expand this team over time. We have sought support from the most prestigious Spanish scientific societies and three have accepted the task: the Spanish Society of Ethology, the Spanish Association of Terrestrial Ecology, and the Spanish Society of Evolutionary Biology. These societies have named thematic editors who will help us strengthen their respective disciplines. This means that we will also expand the range of fields covered in the journal in future, interpreting the expression animal biodiversity in the journal´s title in its widest sense.
Another front that we have opened to boost Animal Biodiversity and Conservation is the new webpage, remodelled for use as a medium to post our published papers. With this move we not only hope to improve our services to readers but also look towards open access, open access in its broadest conception, offering the journal to scientists, both readers and authors, free of charge. If we want science and the knowledge it generates —produced with public money— to belong to us all, we not only have to enable everyone to read it but we also have to help everyone publish, independently of their economic state.
These are difficult times for science, particularly in Spain. We hope that initiatives such as ours will accelerate the efforts of scientific societies and researchers to open knowledge to everyone.

Joan Carles Senar
Editor–in–Chief of Animal Biodiversity and Conservation