The issue 14, nº1 inaugurates a new period in the existence of Archives of Computational Methods in Engineering (ARCME). The journal will be published quarterly by Springer from 2007 onwards.

This is an important landmark in the evolution of a journal whose first issue appeared in 1994 thanks to the support of the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) at Barcelona, Spain. The fast acceptance of the journal within the computational mechanics community has proven that the original aims which motivated us to launch this publication were correct. These aims can be synthesized as making ARCME an active forum for disseminating research results in the broadly understood field of computational engineering science with a particular emphasis on mechanics and its related areas, using a special publishing format for doing it. Indeed, our objectives appear nowadays to be even more relevant than before, the main reason being the ever-increasing activity in the field of computational engineering science in a fast changing world, generating enormous needs for access the state of the art information in every field.

The scope and purpose of the journal will therefore remain the same in the new era that this issue initiates. The journal will publish state of the art review papers written mainly by invitation, although unsolicited contributions will also be accepted, subject to a peer review process. The journal's intention is to fill the gap between shorter research papers typical of existing scientific and technical journals and full-length monographic books.

We want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the contributions from all the authors who have published in ARCME in our first 12 years of the journal's existence. Clearly, the quality of the papers has been the reason for the continuing success of the Archives.

Many thanks also to the Advisory Editors, Professors J.T. Oden and O.C. Zienkiewicz, for their numerous suggestions and continuous encouragement and to the members of the Editorial Board whose support and commitment has been, and will be, essential for the auspicious evolution of the journal.

At the same time we want to express our gratitude to the editorial team at CIMNE in Barcelona, Ms María Jesús Samper in particular, who with their excellent work have greatly contributed to the publication of ARCME across many years.

We are also very grateful to Springer-Verlag for undertaking the publication of ARCME for the coming years. This will undoubtedly contribute to a better, worldwide dissemination of the journal.

Last but not least our words of thanks go to CIMNE for its support and involvement in the publication of ARCME in the past 12 years.

Michal Kleiber
Eugenio Oñate

Print version: ISSN 1134-3060
Online version:ISSN 1886-1784
© 2003 by CIMNE, Barcelona (Spain)

A quarterly publication of the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE), Barcelona, Spain