Abstract
At the Paris IUMS Congresses, where IJSEM had its 2002 Editorial Board meeting, Erko Stackebrandt stood down from the Board of the journal after many years as Associate Editor then Editor. Erko has been a major influence on the journal and helped bring IJSB forward from its days with the American Society for Microbiology through to its relaunch as IJSEM and beyond with the Society for General Microbiology. The terms international, systematic, evolutionary and microbiology have been well covered by the last 3 years of IJSEM, and the journal has prospered extraordinarily well under Erko's leadership, owing to his devotion and vision towards essential developments in the field. He was replaced by Hans Trüper, who unfortunately was unable to remain as Editor owing to his commitments as President of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Hans will remain on the Board as our Latin and Greek expert and to cover matters relating to the Bacteriological Code and Judicial Commission. Peter Kämpfer of the University of Giessen, Germany, has now become Editor of the journal, and I look forward to developing the journal with him over the next few years.
Monique Gillis from Ghent, Belgium, retired after 7 years on the Board at the end of 2002; Monique will be greatly missed, but the Ghent group will continue its presence on the Board through her replacement, Peter Vandamme. John Bowman (Hobart, Tasmania), Jongsik Chun (Seoul, Republic of Korea) and Fred Rainey (Baton Rouge, LA, USA) have also joined the Board recently. Norbert Weiss has retired after many years of service to systematics as List Editor, and he has been replaced by Jean Euzéby (Toulouse, France), whose List of Bacterial Names with Standing in Nomenclature () is an invaluable resource for systematists.
I am also pleased to welcome Natalie Wilder to the editorial team of IJSEM and Journal of Medical Microbiology. Natalie joined us back in December and has recently submitted her PhD thesis on molecular virology to the University of London.