Editorial Note to the last issue of Hereditas

Abstract

“Why do all good things always have to come to an end?” Nothing in this world stays the same, change is inevitable. This may sound a bit frustrating, but in fact it is not. Below, I will try to explain why.

Why did we decide to terminate the activities of Hereditas? To make a long story short: it is for economical reasons. At this stage, it is important to note that Hereditas depends on income based on fees from published articles. As far as the submissions and consequently the published papers were concerned, year 2013 was particularly bad and we ended up with a major deficit. And already in early 2014, we could foresee that the situation will likely not improve in 2014 and beyond. With this foreboding in mind, the Editorial Group talked to the owners of Hereditas, the Mendelian Society to propose to terminate the activities of the journal by the end of 2014, but with the task to keep access to the articles open and free to the whole world, even beyond 2014.

I wish remind the community that the Journal, already back in 2004/2005 was about to lay down arms. But then it was decided that the status of the journal should be changed to an “Open Access” one, a business plan that went unexpectedly well for some years, until the numbers of submission started to go down again, starting 2010. Notably in the last years, Hereditas faced a dramatic increase in newly formed and thus competing journals in the field of genetics. This is probably the main reason for the decrease in the number of incoming manuscripts. Another one could simply be a trend, meaning that time is over for Hereditas now and authors do not want to publish with Hereditas anymore, this possibly also for economical reasons.

As courtesy to the readers and to honor the past of Hereditas, this last edition is devoted to a series of reports, written by prominent Swedish geneticists, documenting how Hereditas was founded, its rise and history, and also commenting on some seminal articles which were published by Hereditas. Of course, this last issue also contains regular articles. In fact, when comparing back issues of Hereditas, this issue contains the most articles ever published within one issue.

For those who published with Hereditas in the past, let me say that your decision was a wise one: your article will remain visible as long as the Digital World is active, owing to its “Open Access” strategy of the Journal. And maybe the wisest decision was done back in 2005 to ensure that this will become possible. Another wise decision was done in 2011 when all back issues up to the first volume of 1920 were digitalized, which makes this journal rather unique because it offers all back issues up to 1920 free for all readers. Possibly, we can turn the opening sentence into something like this: “Good things will remain available, as long as the Digital World exists”.

I wish to thank the scientific community for all contributions and the numerous kind contacts I had in the past, and I wish you best of luck in the future in publishing your articles. A big “thank-you” should also be forwarded to the Subject Editors: without you the Journal would not have come very far. Your input is greatly acknowledged, as well as your numerous hours behind your wise decision. I also wish to thank all past Editors-in-Chief for their lucky hands to steer the Journal throughout the last 94 years. Lastly, I wish to express a warm “tack” (Swedish: thank you) to the Managing Editor, with whom the Journal would not have had a solid ground to survive that long and well.