Ecology Letters was created in early 1998 following discussions with Blackwell Publishing and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Together we hit upon the idea that there was a really important need in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology to have a journal that would publish short, novel articles and would eliminate as much as possible wasted time in manuscript handling. Novelty and rapid decisions go naturally hand-in-hand simply because the most influential work merits the highest quality treatment from submission all the way to publication. Just prior to the launch of Ecology Letters, we were certain that through efficient head-office organization and the use of the latest technologies we could ensure publication decisions within a maximum of 2 months. As it turned out, this was a conservative estimate for the decision times and we never imagined that our performance would meet our goal for every manuscript.

What has made Ecology Letters attractive to these first authors and to contributors ever since is that it is perceived as providing a great service to the community

It went to press in mid-1998. We spent the latter half of 1997 working out the format of the journal and plans for the launch and, as is the case for any new journal, we had an editorial board but no papers. So, in late 1997 and early 1998 we invited enough papers to fill the first two issues. We asked the editors to inform their colleagues that a new journal was in the works and to encourage them to submit papers.

Ecology Letters strives to maintain an equal representation of scientific communities in the ecological sciences. Currently our 62 editors come from 21 different countries. We also had to be concerned with expertise in ecology and so we appointed editors from different disciplines, with the knowledge that as time passed we could add experts in particular areas if we felt they were underrepresented. The very first board had 32 members. The current board is 62, although that’s not just because we wanted to get representation from different areas but because the manuscript flow has grown so much—from 120 papers in our first year to over 600 expected in 2003—that we need more editors to handle the papers.

Simple. We invited people whom we knew published high-quality work. I think in all we invited 60 high-profile scientists, and about 30 accepted and came through with papers. That’s quite a good return rate given that they only had a few months from invitation to submission and that they had no real way of knowing if the journal would survive and be successful. What has made Ecology Letters attractive to these first authors and to contributors ever since is that it is perceived as providing a great service to the community. Ecology Letters is the only journal in ecology—and possibly the only one covered by ISI in any science—to ensure that 100% of its decisions will be rendered by a specific date which is fixed at the time of submission. This is extremely important for authors, since doubts about the review process are greatly diminished. Moreover, decisions are made so quickly that when revisions are necessary the authors still have the study and manuscript fresh in their minds. This greatly facilitates efficient revision and, I would imagine, an author’s organization of his or her professional duties. Even when the decision is negative, at least the author receives it quickly and can seek publication in an alternative journal. Albeit an unexpected indicator of our success, we receive two to three "thank you" letters per month from authors of rejected manuscripts!

The time proposed for publication decisions is set out on our web site, and more specifically in the author guidelines. The actual time depends upon the type of paper. The shortest papers we handle, which we call "Ideas and Perspectives," have a manuscript limit of 1,500 text words, and every decision is made within four weeks. "Letters," which are a bit longer, are done within five weeks. We do "Reports" within six weeks. And we do "Reviews," which are the longest articles we run, within eight weeks. Those are the maximums. The vast majority of decisions are made faster than that, and our average decision time for all manuscripts sent out for external review is currently just under four weeks.

This is indeed the potential danger in making rapid publication decisions. We have adapted the journal in several ways to ensure that every decision is made as professionally as possible. The three key factors are impeccable organization, dedication, and acquiring information. Thus, we constantly oversee things so as to forestall last minute problems and obstacles, and with this we are able to obtain professional, on-time decisions. To achieve this 100% of the time, we have to update the situation for every manuscript at least once a day. Our intensive approach does put incredible pressure on editors and referees to come through quickly with informative reports. Editors and reviewers alike must therefore be "altruistic" to some extent, and this can only be explained if they really see the good that Ecology Letters does for colleagues and for the community as a whole.

As one can imagine, the challenge to achieve 100% on-time, professional decisions is immense. When the journal started, we were getting about one-third in on time. We were really quite proud of this because even the "late" decisions were never more than two weeks past the deadline! Over the five years of the journal, on-time decisions have steadily increased our performance, reaching 100% in January 2002. So imagine: every single decision on the past 1,000 manuscripts received has been made by a date determined by the manuscript type and submission date. That’s all. That’s an incredible achievement.

No, but it’s actually not that much more than that. When we were honing our methods and our procedures in the early days, I was working an average of six hours a day on the journal. Since then our manuscript management system has reduced my commitment to just a few hours a day. The credit for the reasonable hours I now commit to Ecology Letters is largely the fruit of its success. The major stumbling block in the early days was to obtain external reviews. Now, with the high profile of the journal more experts are prepared to help us out and this has the feedback effect of further increasing the efficiency of the journal. Since then, we’ve gotten our software programs honed as well, which also cuts down on the amount of time spent on the journal.

Yes, it was. From 1998 to 2001 we were managing the journal with a software program, and many actions were manual. There were a lot of redundant tasks, like copying and pasting manuscripts, that had to be done by hand and took a lot of time. I actually had to help my assistant at the time in doing all this. Unfortunately, that was the technological state-of-the-art at that time. Then we switched over in mid-2001 to a web-based system called ScholarOne Manuscript Central; it was a godsend for us. A lot of those time-consuming, redundant tasks are now done with a single mouse click. You search through the menus, go right to what’s needed, and click. All the necessary letters, for instance, are already in Manuscript Central. More specialized letters are available on my computer screen for quick cutting and pasting. We run the whole journal with about 50 basic letters, which are used for inviting referees, reminding referees, making decisions, etc. Most of my work now actually involves the initial and final processes of review. My editorial assistant manages everything else.

I think that we had a clear goal from the beginning and a logical path to that goal and so I don’t think that I would do it any differently. However, having said that, in late 1997 I simply did not know how difficult it would be to achieve our goals. Our initial ideology for the journal was very simple: that we provide a service for the community by using technology and organizational skills to reduce the dead time in assessing manuscripts. No other journals had cut the path for us, so lots of discussion with associate editors and with colleagues at Blackwell Publishing and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique was necessary to get to where we are now.

The success of our journal is obviously gratifying, but it is important to realize that my perspective is from the "other side of the fence" since I am the only professional ecologist who is actually not allowed to submit papers to Ecology Letters (for obvious reasons). So, I can appreciate authors’ feelings about us by proxy only. Rather, what I find particularly beautiful and unexpected in overseeing manuscripts is when we receive three (the normal number of reports sought) well thought-out, constructive reports, that aids both the editors in making their decision and the authors in bringing their manuscript to the highest possible quality. We now have this very situation in the majority of cases.

Providing 100% on-time decisions and being ranked in the top 10 journals in ecology in 2002 is a major milestone. Certainly the journal will continue to grow insofar as it will receive increasing numbers of manuscripts, which will mean it will become ever more selective in terms of what it publishes. That means higher impact in terms of citations.

However, I really think that one of the unexpected successes of Ecology Letters has been and will continue to be the evolution of other high-profile journals in ecology. Colleagues managing these journals confide that we are having an influence on them already in terms of making amendments to their procedures to cut dead time. So the influence of our journal will continue to extend beyond the papers we publish to encouraging other journals to increase their efficiency, as well.

Ecology Letters
Dr. Michael Hochberg, Editor-in-Chief 
Blackwell Publishing and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique