After 28 years of sterling service on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM), Professor M. Grae Worster stood down as Editor on 31 December 2021, a role he filled with distinction since 2007. The whole international community of fluid mechanics researchers owes Grae a huge amount of thanks for his stewardship of JFM through a period of both great change and great growth for the journal.
In his first year as an Associate Editor in 1994, just over 350 papers were published in JFM in 24 monochrome physical volumes with plain Cambridge blue covers. By 2021, over 1250 papers were published in 24 virtual online-only volumes, each with an attractive cover image from an included paper. Papers can now use colour throughout, and each has an associated graphical abstract, sometimes without but increasingly with ‘open access’, which makes them readable by anyone anywhere with access to the internet. Also, Papers are now not only ‘Standard’ publications, as JFM also publishes magisterial ‘Perspectives’ by leading researchers, timely ‘Rapids’ of exciting, new results that can be reported concisely, and accessible ‘Focus on Fluids’ that highlight particularly noteworthy and important recent works of interest to the broad research community. Many papers have associated datasets, codes and movies, bringing to life the experiments or simulations described in the underlying text.
These innovations in type and form of JFM papers are not the only ones introduced and implemented under Grae's leadership as Editor, always with his customary calm efficiency and clarity of thought. Most importantly in my view, he has actively encouraged the broadening of our research community across the entire world, expanding the Editorial Board and supporting and soliciting submissions to JFM from everywhere that fascinating fluids phenomena are being discovered, studied and understood. In this commitment to internationalisation, Grae has built on and extended the global vision of JFM's founding Editor George K. Batchelor. In 1997, in Applied Mechanics Review, Batchelor wrote that the fluid mechanics research community
transcends geographical and political boundaries and constitutes one of the most important forces for international harmony and friendship in the world today.
These words are just as true now. Publishing in, reviewing for and reading JFM are activities that the whole community have in common, activities that bind us all together across the world in our love for the very best in fluid mechanics research.
Through all this change and growth, Grae has unfailingly ensured that Batchelor's vision for JFM also has been protected and indeed strengthened. Grae has made sure that the entire Editorial Board remains committed to what he referred to as the ‘hallmarks’ of JFM in his ‘Farewell to Paper’ in 2019.
The hallmarks of JFM are not to be found in the weight of the printed volume but in the quality of reviewing and the quality of communication. The former ensures the very high standards of scientific development enshrined in the Journal, for which we owe huge gratitude to the community that holds the Journal in such high esteem that it is important to them to put effort into scrutinising and critiquing submissions constructively. The latter starts with the clarity of exposition expected of our authors and ends with the quality of production provided by Cambridge University Press.
These two key hallmarks have been fundamental characteristics of JFM since its founding in 1959, under the committed stewardship of the many members of the Editorial Board of the Journal, led for three decades by Batchelor, and then by his illustrious successors as Editor before Grae: Keith Moffatt; David Crighton; Tim Pedley and Stephen Davis.
I am greatly honoured (and a little daunted) to be asked to take up the role of Editor of JFM from Grae, especially as I will be the first Editor not to have been appointed to the Editorial Board by, worked with or even spoken to Professor Batchelor! However, I have had the good fortune to work with Grae for over a decade as an Associate and then Deputy Editor. Therefore, I have had a great opportunity to observe and learn up close how he has made sure that JFM delivers what really matters to the authors, reviewers and readers of JFM, i.e. to the international fluid mechanics research community. It matters that JFM continues to be the venue for the publication of the very highest quality papers reporting important fluids research. Although there certainly will be many more exciting changes in JFM over the coming years, all of us directly involved with the production of JFM, both on the Editorial Board and at CUP, will do our utmost to ensure that the quality ‘hallmarks’ of JFM remain as clearly apparent as they have been when JFM was in Grae's care. Thank you Professor Worster: we look forward in due course to receiving your next manuscript for consideration for publication in JFM, naturally after the customary rigorous review process…
