Dear readers, authors, reviewers, subject editors and editorial board members

You hold in your hands the 6^th issue of Alpine Entomology, the journal of the Swiss Entomological Society (SEG), that I have had the pleasure and honor to publish as Editor-in-Chief.

In spring 2017, I was approached by the former SEG President Hannes Baur to take over the recently created journal, with a newly defined focus and scope and an agreement with the publisher Pensoft. I was thus offered this new journal on a silver platter, waiting to be filled with exciting articles. The new journal Alpine Entomology replaced the traditional SEG journal. The famous “Mitteilungen der Schweizerischen Entomologischen Gesellschaft/Bulletin de la Société Entomologique Suis­se” was to disappear and be substituted with an online and open access journal. A real revolution suiting the current trend towards democratization of scientific journals.

So here I was, an Editor-in-Chief of a new journal that should be published for the first time at the end of 2017, before Christmas. We have continued to follow this tradition, and the journal was typically published at the end of the year (except in 2020 and in this present year). Of course, this tradition is losing some of its meaning given the immediate access to new articles online as soon as final versions can be produced after acceptance.

Despite its seemingly exclusive title, Alpine Entomology is actually not at all limited to the Alps. From the very beginning, we made it clear that our journal is open to all publications related to insects and other arthropods, not only from the Alps, but also from other mountainous regions (Lachat and Baur 2017). It was up to me as the Editor-in-Chief to decide whether the link with the mountains was strong enough to forward a manuscript to the subject editor, who always helped me to make a decision in case of doubt.

My declared ambition from the beginning was to get the journal indexed in bibliographic databases. We needed to be patient but were finally indexed by Scopus in 2020. Furthermore, Alpine Entomology will also be granted its first impact factor in 2023 by Clarivate Analytics. Despite a modest number of articles published annually, I am proud of what Alpine Entomology has become. In six years, we have published almost a hundred articles ranging from scientific papers to the annual report of the society through checklists for Switzerland. Some of these articles have acquired more than 3000 unique views on our website https://alpineentomology.pensoft.net. This confirms the success of the online open access format for our journal and proves that Alpine Entomology is frequently consulted by the national and international communities of entomologists beyond the members of the SEG.

After the publication of the 5^th volume, I had taken the decision to step down from my position as Editor-in-Chief once an ideal successor could be found. I am very pleased that we have selected a successor, a brilliant person to take over the reins of our journal. Unfortunately, I cannot announce the name of the new Editor-in-Chief yet, as the candidate will be officially elected at the next general meeting of the society in March 2023.

The future challenge for my successor will be to consolidate the scientific and international orientation of our journal. With the broader indexing of Alpine Entomology and the new Editor-in-Chief, I hope that the number of articles published annually will increase even more. The two topical collections we have recently launched on aquatic arthropods and alien insects should also help to ensure a growing interest in submitting manuscripts to our journal (Lachat and Martin 2021).

Over the past six years, I have led Alpine Entomology, with the support of a team of highly dedicated subject editors and the editorial board, to its current position. I would like to thank all the people who have contributed to the success of our journal during these years. Finally, I wish my successor every success and pleasure in his/her work and a long and fulfilled life to Alpine Entomology.