Off To New Adventures

Dear all,

This has been in the making for a long time now. When Pascal (Hitzler) stepped down from being an editor-in-chief of the Semantic Web journal, I agreed to stay on during the transition period and for the selection of a new team. Pascal and I have been editors-in-chief since the journal's launch in 2010, so saying my goodbyes is a sentimental process. With Cogan Shimizu and Eva Blomqvist, we have found an experienced, enthusiastic, and well-respected team that can carry the journal forward and have been doing so as managing editors for a while now.

Despite the high initial workload and responsibility of setting up and running an entirely custom-designed review system and (at that time) highly innovative review process, being part of such an ambitious project was great fun. I am extremely grateful to Pascal and all the editors over the years who have helped shape the journal, keep it innovative, and, most importantly, make it a friendly and supportive home for hundreds of authors, reviewers, and editors. Finally, I am also thankful to Einar Fredriksson, who was instrumental to the journal's success in so many ways, as well as to Maarten Frohlich, Stephanie Delbecque, Astrid Engelen, and the rest of the IOS team, who let us explore many crazy ideas together.

In fact, our nice little Semantic Web academic community (more broadly), with all its niches, be they ontology engineering, linked data/knowledge graphs, description logics, or representation learning, is, for most parts, an inviting and highly interdisciplinary family. Oddly enough, this has set us apart from many other research fields that try to build walls, not bridges. As half geo-scientist, half computer scientist, and often not much more than a visitor to some of the more exotic subfields of our Semantic Web community, I always felt welcome!

This is not an empty phrase. I believe this inclusiveness and kindness have been key to our success for more than a quarter of a century now; they constantly infuse our field with new ideas and creative minds and contribute to our ability to reinvest ourselves.

I am going to remain part of our community, and thanks to Eva's and Cogan's kindness, also stay on the journal's board for a while. Still, I will no longer be co-shaping our joint journey the way the journal allowed Pascal and me to before, be it through editorials, the selection of special issues, various community events aligned with the journal, our unique review process, our early preprint and open-access policy, and so on. After 16 years, it is time to step back and let others steer the journal's course. Best of luck to them.

Meanwhile, I am off to new adventures...

Onward,
Krzysztof (Jano) Janowicz