A MESSAGE FROM THE NEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

The year 2023 represents a milestone for our country, our academy, and for our journal. The Republic of Türkiye will celebrate its centennial, the Turkish Naval Academy (TNA) will celebrate its quarter-millennial, and the Journal of Naval Sciences and Engineering (JNSE) will celebrate its vicennial in 2023. Undoubtedly, the historical intersection is a source of praise and pride for our academy and for our journal. 99 years ago, the Turkish nation created an epic of independence under the leadership of Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his comrades in the War of Independence. The 100th anniversary of the Republic will be celebrated in 2023 to cherish the deep-rooted memory of our struggle for independence. Founded in 1773 by Mustafa III, the 26th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, the Imperial School of Naval Engineering (Mühendishane-i Bahr-i Hümâyûn), considered the first engineering school of the Empire, became the foundation of both the TNA and the Istanbul Technical University (ITU). TNA and ITU have special positions in terms of Turkish modernization history as the institutions where engineering and technical education have continued since the Ottoman period with their 249 years of distinguished history. 2023 will mark these exceptional institutions’ 250th anniversary. 2023 will also mark the 20th anniversary of the international journal of the TNA, i.e., JNSE. The journal aims to provide a scientific contribution to the theory and applications of naval sciences and engineering and share knowledge in relevant fields since its first issue in 2003. As we are entering this historically significant year, it is an honor and privilege for me to have been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of the scientific journal of our prestigious 250-year-old academy. As an Editorial Board Member since 2013, as well as an Editor in both 2018 and 2019, and as an Administrative Board Member of the Naval Sciences and Engineering Institute from 2013 to 2022, I have seen the continued improvement that JNSE has experienced. I inherit the role of Editor-in-Chief of the JNSE at a special time when our journal has been included within the scope of the ULAKBIM TR Index. The journal must, first and foremost, continue to provide a contribution to science and engineering in fields aligned with the areas of interest of the JNSE, e.g., electrical and electronics engineering, naval/mechanical engineering, naval architecture and marine engineering, industrial engineering, computer science and engineering, and basic/social sciences. In the meantime, we will do our best to make our journal ready to be a candidate to be indexed in Science Citation Indexes. Raising the quality of the accepted papers by introducing strict review criteria will be instrumental in achieving this goal by increasing the impact of the journal. To this end, we recently applied to join Crossref as a member under the sponsorship of TUBITAK ULAKBIM DergiPark, and consequently, the JNSE will be able to provide a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) for accepted papers submitted after 1 September 2022 via the 'DergiPark' online system. With the new structure of JNSE’s Editorial Board, when a manuscript is submitted, the EIC assigns it to the appropriate Editorial Board Member based on the main topic area of the manuscript. The assigned Member should assign a minimum of two reviewers to evaluate the manuscript. He/she is expected to make his/her own independent review of the manuscript and, once the reviewers have completed their evaluation, he/she submits a recommendation to the EIC. The EIC checks for consistency among the recommendations, typically accepts the recommendation of the assigned Editorial Board Member and then communicates to the corresponding author the final decision together with the comments of the reviewers. We are therefore starting with a smaller, more flexible, and resourceful Editorial Board, dedicated to this purpose. I hope that with the other editors, we can push JNSE to a more competitive position within the field; a position that it rightly deserves. I also take this opportunity to introduce Onur USTA who will be working with me as the Assistant Editor-in-Chief. I would like to thank all the editorial team members and look forward to working with them. The success of any journal is built on the support of the contributors, the reviewers, the editors, and the publication staff. I look forward to receiving your ideas for making JNSE more valuable for our community. We welcome your original contributions to our issues that will be published in this historical intersection, where the centennial of the Republic, the sestercentennial of the TNA, and the twentieth year of the JNSE meet.