The ASME Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science (NERS)1 celebrates its eighth year (our first issue was published in January of 2015). On this occasion, I would like to congratulate all members of our Journal Board, reviewers (their names are listed at the end of this greeting), authors, and readers with this date!
First of all, we would like to admit those Associate (AEs) and Guest Editors (GEs), whose terms have expired in 2022, for their valuable contributions to the Journal and nuclear engineering/radiation science:
Associate Editors:
• Walter Ambrosini, University of Pisa, Italy
• Joerg Starflinger, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Guest Editors:
• Asif Arastu, Unisont Engineering, Inc.
• Chukwudi Azih, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories
• Aljaz Cufar, Jozef Stefan Institute
• Vaclav Dostal, CTU in Prague
• Manuela Fulger, RATEN ICN
• Kellen M. Giraud, Idaho National Laboratory
• Petr Haušild, Czech Technical University Prague
• Shuisheng He, University of Sheffield
• Marketa Krykova, Centrum výzkumu Rez
• Michal Kostal, Research Center Rez
• Thambiayah Nitheanandan, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
• Alberto Sáez-Maderuelo, CIEMAT
• Luka Snoj, Jozef Stefan Institute
• Aki Toivonen, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland Ltd.
• Matthew Weathered, Argonne National Laboratory
• Zhangjian Zhou, University of Science and Technology Beijing
In addition, we would like to welcome the following new Guest Editors:
• Adam Burak, University of Michigan
• Rami El-Emam, Ontario Tech University
• Nima Fathi, Texas A&M University
• Brendan Kochunas,
• Mitja Ursic, Josef Stephan Institute
• Xianfei Wen, University of Tennessee
With the above mentioned changes in the lists of Associate and Guest Editors, our editorial team consists of 1 Editor (Ed), 30 AEs, and 6 GEs, who represent 20 countries with nuclear-power reactors (Canada (1 Ed, 2 AEs, and 1 GE); China (5 AEs); Czech Republic (1 AE); France (1 AE), Germany (1 AE); India (1 AE); Japan (4 AEs); South Korea (1 AE); Mexico (1 AE); Pakistan (1 AE); Russia (2 AEs); Slovenia (1 GE), South Korea (1 AE), Switzerland (1 AE); Ukraine (1 Ed); United Kingdom (1 AE); and USA (4 AEs and 4 GEs); and 3 countries without nuclear-power reactors (Israel (1 AE); Italy (2 AEs), and Serbia (1 AE).
Year 2022 was quite challenging again to everybody and to our Journal as well due to Covid-19 restrictions still remaining in many countries worldwide. Also, unfortunately, many nuclear-engineering/radiation-science conferences were canceled, moved to next year, or conducted virtually. Therefore, we would like to invite authors from these conferences to submit their augmented and revised papers to our Journal with the objective to publish as soon as possible their valuable research/technical results.
During our eighth year, we have published four issues electronically and as hard copies (as planned, always on time or ahead of a schedule) with about 100 papers including two Special Issues and one Special Section with selected augmented and revised papers:
(1) Issue 1, January 2022: SI: EU ESFR-SMART Project Prepared by Dr. Joel Guidez and authors of the original papers.
(2) Issue 3, July 2022: Special Section: Selected Papers from the ISSCWR-10
(3) Issue 4, October 2021: SI: Selected Papers from the NENE-2020 conference Prepared by Dr. Aljaz Cufar and authors of the original papers.
We would like to share some statistics on papers accepted for publication in our Journal by country, as such, the largest contributors within 2015-2022 were: (1) Canada—150 papers; (2) China—93; (3) USA—91; (4) Czech Republic—66; (5) Japan—60; (6) India—49; (7) Germany—42; (8) France—29; and UK—24. Also, we have noticed that many countries without operating nuclear-power reactors (Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, DR of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Egypt, Ghana, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey, Viet Nam, etc.) have submitted their papers into our Journal. In total we have accepted papers from 54 countries.
Also, we must keep the highest quality level of published papers. Therefore, we have the following statistics on papers, which have not been accepted for publication: Rejected ∼21%; Withdrawn ∼9%; and Removed ∼21%, i.e., in total ∼51% from all submitted papers. By maintaining a comprehensive, objective, and independent peer-review process, we are publishing papers in the journal that are of a much higher quality and credibility relative to those that have no independent and objective peer review.
Our plans for this year are:
(1) Publish four issues with a larger number of papers and to make the “waiting time” for publishing as short as possible.
(2) Publish a Special Section with selected augmented and revised papers from ICONE-28, April 2022.
The Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science is currently included in the Web of Science, Emerging Sources Citation Index, and Scopus. The title is under review for inclusion in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) to receive an Impact Factor in 2023.
And finally, we hope that you will join us in our Journal as authors of submitted manuscripts and as reviewers. This is indeed a unique international journal, which combines research, industrial operating experience, new designs/systems, safety analysis, applications of nuclear energy and many other related topics that change the world and our lives for the better! We also hope you will enjoy reading papers that follow.
On behalf of the ASME J. of NERS Editorial Board,