This editorial marks the end of my five-year term as editor-in-chief of Educational Studies in Mathematics. I am delighted to welcome Arthur Bakker of Utrecht University, the Netherlands, as the next editor-in-chief starting in January 2019. Arthur has served as an associate editor for several years, and before that as a member of the journal’s editorial board. We have been working together for several months on plans for ESM’s future in order to make a smooth editorial transition at the end of 2018.

During my time as editor-in-chief, the number of manuscript submissions has remained relatively stable at around 300 per year – more than double the annual total ten years ago. Since the journal was accepted into the Social Sciences Citation Index in 2011 its Impact Factor has increased steadily to the current value of 1.100. Other indications of the journal’s continuing success come from its geographical reach, measured in terms of author countries of origin for submitted and accepted manuscripts as well as visits by geography to the journal website. ESM regularly attracts manuscript submissions from more than 50 countries annually, with authors of accepted manuscripts representing around 20 different countries each year. Although the highest number of accepted manuscripts come from English-speaking countries, the journal’s readership is much broader. Visits to the website are most frequent for readers in the Asia-Pacific region, with substantial numbers of readers also accessing journal content from Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

The journal’s associate editors play a major role in maintaining its quality and standards, and I would like to thank our seven current associate editors for their tireless work and support: Luis Radford, Angel Gutierrez, Elizabeth de Freitas, Vilma Mesa, Wim Van Dooren, David Wagner, and Arthur Bakker – who will be replaced with a new associate editor in January 2019. My thanks go also to Gail FitzSimons for her energetic contribution as book review editor, and to Bronwyn Lacken for her patient and meticulous support as my editorial assistant. I am thankful for, and impressed by, the scholarly contribution of the journal’s editorial board members, who willingly take on the task of assessing manuscripts and providing detailed and constructive feedback to authors.

Over the last five years the journal’s editors have been active in presenting workshops on publishing mathematics education research to support early career researchers and colleagues who do not have English as their first language. I presented one of these workshops at the Early Researcher Day in conjunction with ICME-13 in Hamburg, and the presentations from this day are to be published in a book edited by Gabriele Kaiser and Norma Presmeg. I concluded my chapter for this book by writing:

A journal is much more than a collection of articles. It reflects the development of new ideas, interests, and theories in the field it serves, and provides a vehicle for dissemination and debate within a research community over time. When you submit a manuscript to ESM, you are seeking to join this international community and contribute to its debates, history, and knowledge building activities.

It remains my sincere wish that Educational Studies in Mathematics continues to serve our international community in these important ways.