Editorial

Abstract

At this moment in time, when I step down as Editor-in-Chief of Applied Categorical Structures, I want to look back on the years from its inception till today and at the same time stress the excellent perspectives for the future. It was at a conference in Bremen in the late eighties that I launched the idea to create a journal devoted to category theory and its applications in mathematics, and this idea was immediately received with great enthusiasm by the many colleagues present. From that moment onwards it took almost two years, many trips back and forth to the headquarters of Kluwer in Dordrecht, meetings with Kluwer representatives both in Dordrecht and in Antwerp, and several extensive surveys in the community before the decision to launch the journal was made and the contracts were signed. It still took quite a while to finalise the initial Editorial Board, decide on the design of the cover of the journal and on many other practical matters. The first issue finally appeared in 1993. From then until 2004 the journal was published under Kluwer, and in 2005, after the merger of Kluwer with Springer the journal was published under the Springer banner. I take this opportunity to thank all people at Kluwer and Springer with whom I dealt those many years for the always pleasant and fruitful cooperation. Over the years the journal underwent fundamental changes, going from strength to strength with an ever widening author-and readership. It started with a scope and Editorial Board geared towards mainstream algebra, order, topology and theoretical computer science. That scope was gradually extended to include homological and homotopical algebra, derived categories, categorical investigations in theoretical physics and higher category theory. Of course these changes could only be made provided they were reflected by the constitution of the Editorial Board. I was fortunate, at all times, to be able to attract excellent Editors.