As my term of office as Editor-in Chief ends, I can reflect on accepting the role in 2018, and the challenge that lay ahead in succeeding Professor Ian Rowland, who would be a hard act to follow. After learning the ropes and settling in, the world was gripped by the Covid pandemic, and we were thrown into the unknown. The isolation of lockdowns created more time for writing papers and inevitable flood of submissions on Covid-related topics. Fortunately, as the bar for the quality of these submissions was raised, so too were the journal’s metrics, with its impact factor rocketing from 4.66 in 2019, to 5.61 in 2020. While the inflation of impact factors was a widespread, and seemingly erroneous phenomenon in this unprecedented year, this vital statistic would climb back to an impressive 5.0 by 2023. A major factor behind this achievement was the work of my section editors, past and present. Their professionalism and tireless efforts in setting and maintaining the highest of standards in all aspects of the peer-review process has earned the Journal a reputation to be proud of. I would also like to thank the team at Springer, including my Publications Editor, Beate Heinze for her guidance and support, and especially Dr Daniela Oberreuther-Moschner.  Daniela was the driving force of operations in our editorial office, who initiated and managed the peer-review process. Without Daniela, there simply would have been no process. It only remains for me to say that it has been a true privilege to serve as Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Nutrition (EJON), and it gives me great pleasure to hand over to my successor, Professor Kieran Tuohy.

Thank you Bruce. It is a great honour to accept this new challenge. I feel I am truly standing on the shoulders of giants when I look back of the success of EJON under your stewardship and that of our predecessors. Changing of the guard is often a tricky moment, a moment of risk, a moment of uncertainty and these are indeed uncertain times. In the closing weeks of 2023 our world was challenged as never before, with climate change, geopolitical and economic instability, nutrition transition and food poverty, with, sensationalism, exaggeration and fake news in the social media adding fuel to the fire. After the ‘omics’ revolution in scientific data acquisition, artificial intelligence (AI) is now on the cusp of transforming the very nature of human existence. AI could alter how we view our place in the world, perceive reality, and interface with vast amounts of scientific information now being generated to describe every scientific realm. Never before has scientific integrity, independent scientific leadership, fact-checking and wider availability of data relating to evidence-based science been more important, and the field of nutrition is no exception. Working together with the excellent team you and Ian before you have shaped at EJON, I believe we have a fantastic opportunity to bring some reason to the madness. We have an opportunity to help drive nutrition research forward, to benefit all stakeholders from farm to fork, fork to gut, gut to the whole body, and from personalised nutrition to population-based solutions to improve human health and reduce disease risk. It is a great honour to be part of this team effort and I am really looking forward to the challenge.