EDITORIAL

Celebrating the successes of the Clean Air Journal over the past 6 years and looking forward

Caradee Y. Wright

Outgoing Co-Editor of the Clean Air Journal. South African Medical Research Council and University of Pretoria. Email: cwright@mrc.ac.za

Science in South Africa has a triple role to play. First and foremost, it must serve society. It must contribute to the growing knowledge-based economy both nationally and globally and it must be the springboard for young people to find opportunities to begin their careers.

The Clean Air Journal has for almost 50 years been the premier local journal on atmospheric science, air pollution and its impacts, and air quality management. Topics featured in the journal have varied widely over the years, from fundamental air pollution science to the complexities of offsetting, making the Clean Air Journal the largest single repository of South African air quality-related literature.

Since 2013, with an exchange of more than 1 500 email, dozens of meetings coupled with laughs, sweat and tears, I have been a proud Co-Editor of the Clean Air Journal together with Assoc/Prof Rebecca Garland and Dr Gregor Feig. It was a formidable task taking on this role from Past Editor of the Journal, Dr Gerrit Kornelius, and I am pleased to say that together the three of us have done our very best to advance the presence and standard of the Journal both locally and worldwide.

Simultaneous to publishing 11 issues of the Journal between 2013 and 2018, we worked very hard to have the Clean Air Journal indexed in multiple databases, including Google Scholar, Ulrich's ProQuest and SHERPA/RoMEO. Recently, we were also accepted into the Directory of Open Access Journals and Scopus, although for the latter we are indexed, yet waiting to meet a minimum target of published articles before appearing live on their website. We also remain indexed in Sabinet, however, now as an open access journal. The enormous effort that was needed to be included in these databases entailed overhauling the website, archiving all previous Journal publications, writing new Journal policies, adding Digital Object Identifiers to all new articles and mounds of paperwork. But, it has been worth the effort and we are hopeful for two additional exciting developments in the near future.

The Clean Air Journal has for the past 6 years had a 'front section' providing news, commentaries, research briefs and other material about the latest happenings in air quality in South Africa and globally. It has been fascinating to read the topics proposed by Journal contributors. About three-quarters of all published articles include at least one postgraduate student as a co-author highlighting the important role of the Journal in human capital development in South Africa. A very big thank you to all our reviewers for their patience and dedication to the review process in assisting all authors to improve on the science and quality of their submitted manuscripts.

Thank you to our Editorial team for sharing the workload, to the National Association for Clean Air for their continued support, to the authors who commit to publishing in the Journal and helping us to improve the quality of publications. I also acknowledge the critical role of our Editorial Board and thank each member for the contributions to the Journal.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my 6-year term as Co-Editor of the Clean Air Journal. I welcome Dr Kristy Langerman into her new role in the editorial team. I will never be more than a phone call away and I will continue to support the journal with submissions and commentaries. I am very excited about the Journal's future and I encourage all who work in the fields of air quality to continue to support the Journal as it transforms from a premier local journal to one of international prestige.