In January next year, to coincide with the inauguration of the International Year of Crystallography (IYCr2014), the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) will launch IUCrJ, a new online peer-reviewed journal offering full open access (www.iucrj.org).

IUCrJ aims to attract high-profile articles on all aspects of the sciences, technologies and methods supported by the IUCr via its commissions. Within this remit, one of the key topics that we wish to emphasise is the active and growing research area of crystal engineering. The expectation is that we will publish papers with scientific impact exceeding those in the specialist crystal engineering journals. If you are contemplating publication of your work in a journal with a broader chemical scope and higher impact level, we ask you to consider submission to IUCrJ.

In support of this vision of the IUCr, I have agreed to take up the main editorship of the crystal engineering section of IUCrJ despite my commitments as IUCr President till August 2014, and also the attendant obligations that pertain to IYCr2014. I will be assisted in this editorial task by four Co-editors who are very active researchers in areas pertaining to chemistry and crystal engineering:

Co-editors: A. D. Bond (Denmark), M. Eddaoudi (Saudi Arabia), C. Lecomte (France), C.-Y. Su (China)

Professor Lecomte is currently Vice President of the IUCr and is very involved in IYCr2014 activities, especially in Africa and South America. It is a measure of his commitment to the concept of IUCrJ that he has agreed to serve as Co-editor.

I am also happy that Mike Zaworotko has agreed to serve on the Editorial Advisory Board of IUCrJ and we look forward to his advice on a regular basis.

We are reaching out to you directly because you are active in this research area and we hope that you will join with us to build a strong new forum for publication of the most influential results in crystal engineering. We encourage you to follow the links at www.iucrj.org and submit your next important paper to IUCrJ.

Best wishes

Gautam R. Desiraju
Main Editor, IUCrJ