Turning thirty: evolution but not revolution at the ERJ

The European Respiratory Journal was officially born in 1988 when the European Journal of Respiratory Diseases was merged with the Bulletin Européen de Physiopathologie Respiratoire. This was 2 years before the European Respiratory Society was founded (and 2 years before the worldwide web!). Peter Howard was one of the driving forces for the merger and he expressed in a report from 1986 that “… it will soon be possible to use a microcomputer to put the scientific papers on a floppy disc, which can be inserted into the back of a printing machine to produce perfect print…” [1]. Just imagine how the scientific world has changed in the 30 years since the first edition of the ERJ. “Papers on a floppy disk” may cause nostalgic feelings to the older editors, authors and readers of the journal, but probably sounds ancient to the younger ones. The new chief editor team outlines how they’ll continue the journal’s great journey, started by the previous leaders http://ow.ly/1VRd30hi6F3