Another busy year in the poultry science world – with several major conferences being held – notably the Norwegian meeting in June. Many thanks to the organisers there who were very helpful in letting authors know about publishing suitable reviews in the Journal from the topics they presented. This issue has several papers that touch on the same topics – which sometimes happens in publishing. When papers are unsolicited and are submitted unselectively, it is interesting that similar topics crop up – albeit with a different focus depending on the authors. We have more papers regarding disease and manure in this issue – both important topics. Necrotic enteritis, for example, seems to remain a major issue for poultry producers, albeit one which is better understood and rectified nowadays. As I write, we are preparing for our annual board meeting in Korea in October. There are many new developments in the world of publishing – open access to papers, changes in online publishing and so on – and it is my responsibility to update the Board regarding such issues. In addition, we move from strength to strength in terms of submission of unsolicited papers from around the world, and greater volumes of papers require higher degrees of management and selection. As such, we are currently reviewing methods for speeding up publication times for authors, whilst balancing the extra papers coming through. Watch this space! Hopefully I will have caught up with many colleagues and friends at Korea’s APPC – if not I wish you all well and trust that 2014 has been a good year for you.

Best wishes to all

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor