Editorial [New EIC S.J. Savory]

One of the roles of the Editor-in-Chief is to set the strategic direction for PTL, and so over the next few years you will see changes introduced to better serve the photonics community. These changes are designed to focus on the remit of PTL, namely to facilitate rapid publication of concise letters detailing the latest research into photonics technology in its widest sense. To better facilitate rapid publication, as of January 2012, PTL has moved to a streamlined review process, which has seen the removal of major revisions as an option. Only moderate revisions which can realistically be completed within two weeks will be considered, the rational being that a manuscript that requires more extensive revisions often requires several more rounds of revision, in opposition of the rapid publication remit of PTL. As such, if a manuscript requires extensive revisions, given the requirements for rapid publication, the letter will be rejected and the authors requested to resubmit an extensively revised version of the manuscript at a later date of their choosing. This allows the authors to carefully address the concerns raised by the reviewers without the temporal constraints imposed by a fixed deadline.