We are honored to announce that Prof. Dr. Olaf Gefeller has been appointed Section Editor-in-Chief for the Section “Pediatric Dermatology” in Children (ISSN: 2227-9067).

Name: Prof. Dr. Olaf Gefeller
Affiliation: Department of Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
Interests: biometry and epidemiology; dermatology; pediatric dermatology

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Olaf Gefeller, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing: 

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?
The journal Children has established itself in a short time as an important publication venue for pediatric research. My own focus is on epidemiologic research on dermatooncologic and allergologic topics, especially on prevention issues during childhood. This represents a subset of pediatric dermatology. I have always enjoyed editorial work, especially the organization of a fair and constructive review process—also with other journals—so I wanted to contribute my experience to the establishment of the new Section.

2. What is your vision for the journal? What does the future of this field of research look like?
In the short time since its launch, the journal has managed to be included in the group of journals listed by the Web of Science, where it already appears in the top two quartiles of all pediatric journals. By selecting high-quality manuscripts, I would like to contribute to the continuation of this successful development and Children's rise to the top quartile. Pediatric dermatology is one of those medical specialties that work at the intersection of two medical specialty groups, addressing both pediatricians and dermatologists. My impression is that there are currently considerably more dermatologists dedicated to this specialty. This does not make the work easy for the new Section, as the journal is perceived as a pediatric journal. Therefore, I will mainly try to increase the awareness of the journal among dermatologists dedicated to pediatric dermatology and to position the journal as a publication organ for high-quality dermatologic research on clinical, experimental and epidemiologic topics related to pediatric dermatology.

3. What do you think of the development of open access in the publishing field?
Open access is on its way to successfully change the scientific publishing landscape. The traditional subscription model of scholarly publishers is in decline. In my home country, Germany, transformation agreements have already been concluded with major scientific publishers such as Wiley and Springer, so that all academic libraries no longer enter into subscription agreements with these publishers to obtain access to journals, but instead pay the article processing charges of publications by the scientists associated with them and do not have to pay subscription fees. I am firmly convinced that sooner or later, the entire scientific publishing landscape will transfer to open access.

We wish Prof. Dr. Olaf Gefeller every success in his new position, and we look forward to his contributions to the journal.

Children Editorial Office