Welcome Message from the Editor-in-Chief

On the occasion of launching the Central European Journal of Physics (CEJP), I would like to greet the readers and authors. It seems appropriate to take this opportunity and say a few words about the reasons behind the launch of a new journal as well as our aims. Our focus is on publishing original results of authors from Central and Eastern Europe by which we mean the countries of the former communist block. The obvious question immediately arises: what’s the point in launching a journal with a regional focus in these days, when senseless arti­ cial obstacles to free exchange of people and ideas are being ­ nally removed, when many countries from this region opted for joining the European Union? We know that there is one science. There is no Russian, French or American physics. However, there are local ine ̄ ciencies in communicating research results to scientists worldwide, resulting from yesterday’s political isolation or today’s ­ nancial misery of science in Central and Eastern Europe. Our target is to assist authors by removing some of those ine ̄ ciencies. Also, while there are a lot of examples of good cooperation both on an institutional and individual level between CEE and highly developed countries, cooperation within CEE countries is in many ­ elds of physics surprisingly marginal. By launching CEJP we also hope to foster new relations and cooperation within CEE. Some people say that there are already too many scholarly journals. We believe, however, that there is always space for journals that better meet the needs of authors and readers than other journals. On one side, we want to bring them readers, by making our journal available at academic and research libraries worldwide, by promoting their papers to researchers in the same ­ eld, and by o¬ering all the bene­ ts of electronic publishing. On the other side, we want to help them in many aspects: we provide careful and transparent peer review, very fast publication, English language improvement, assistance in paper writing and technical editing etc. We also hope that researchers and academic libraries in the US, Western Europe and other countries can bene­ t from our service. Our aim isn’t to publish a huge amount of average or poor contributions, in contrary, by strict but fair peer reviewing and language editing we want to provide quality content. Therefore we set out to publish CEJP initially on a quarterly rather than on a monthly basis. We are fully aware of the fact that establishing a viable scholarly journal takes time and e¬ort. We cannot succeed without the understanding and support of key individuals and organizations. We have received tremendous support and encouragement from leading CEE scientists and institutions. It’s impossible to acknowledge them all individually. Many outstanding researchers have joined the editorial board of CEJP, their advice and assistance is gratefully acknowledged. Also editors and referees have made an indispensable contribution by reviewing and evaluating submissions.