We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Armen Sedrakian has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Particles (ISSN 2571-712X).

Prof. Dr. Armen Sedrakian is a theoretical physicist and astrophysicist conducting research at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS), located at the campus of Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main. He is also Associate Professor at Wroclaw University.

Over the past few years, Prof. Dr. Sedrakian’s research has been deeply focused on the interrelation between particle physics and astrophysics, between the micro- and macro-worlds, and on theories, models and methods that find applications in a multitude of research fields ranging from condensed matter to high-density quantum chromodynamics.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Armen Sedrakian:

The journal is based on an approach which differs from the traditional ones due to the open access publication mode. I believe that the knowledge must be freely available and that open access should be the future of publishing. Establishing a journal with a new and dynamic team of editors is an interesting challenge that I think is worthwhile to take. The MDPI staff has a fast and dynamic way of working. I have seen that it is very effective in attracting good referees and getting reports faster than the traditional journals. There are also new avenues of attracting research to the journal, such as Special Issues or collections of articles. All this makes the job of the editor quite interesting. 

The journal must have a broad scope and range. It should cover several adjacent disciplines such as particle physics, particle astrophysics, accelerator physics, nuclear theory and experiment. The open access feature must be maintained as the community will go over to this mode of publication in the future by allocating special funds for that. The journal must have steady progress towards a good citation index and a level of high quality. This must be achieved by maximally engaging the current scientific editors through constant dialogue and discussion. 

Particle physics is one of the central areas of physics with a bright perspective. The optimism is based on at least two aspects. One is the future experiments in astronomy (some related to space missions) which will provide information on the astroparticle aspects of the universe. Examples are the gravitational wave detectors which will revolutionize the space science in the upcoming decades. The other aspect are the experiments on accelerators which are currently functioning and are planned for the near future. Examples of future facilities are FAIR facility in Darmstadt (Germany) and electron–ion collider at Brookhaven (USA). The experiment will drive the theoretical thinking and theoretical work in particle physics; therefore, I expect a strong output by the community in this field. 

I think this is the future of the scientific publishing. The open access archives, which are very popular in the community already, prove that there is no alternative to open access. By requesting small additional funds through grants, the scientific community can channel its research into the open access area, thus facilitating the exchange of scientific thought. I am very much in favor of the open access mode of publication. However, I think it will take some time before it becomes a common practice in our field to pay for open access publishing through institutional funds. Currently, there are a number of highly respected leading journals (for example, the Physical Review Series) which do not charge for publication, but are not open access. Since the funding agencies and grant reviewers are paying a lot of attention to the quality of the journals in which our work is published, the authors are inclined to published in free-of-charge and high-ranking journals. Therefore, the aim of the journals like Particles is to become high-ranking as fast as possible in order to be able to compete with the more traditional journals. 

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Armen Sedrakian as our Editor-in-Chief and look forward to his valuable input for the continued success of Particles.

Particles Editorial Office