I am delighted to announce the change of name of the Journal of Natural Language Engineering which is now called Natural Language Processing.

The change of name is timely and necessary to refer to its scope more accurately employing the more up-to-date and widely used term ‘Natural Language Processing’ (NLP).

The journal was founded in 1993 by Roberto Garigliano and John Tait and has been going from strength to strength over the years. It has been attracting a growing number of submissions, publishing high-quality and diverse contents. I was proud when in 2012 (already as Executive Editor) we secured the first Impact Factor for the journal. I remember fondly when in 2010 Patrick McCartan (then Cambridge University Press’ Publisher) contacted Thomson Reuters and we worked hard together to make sure the journal got its Impact Factor which has increased significantly and continuously ever since then.

Now Natural Language Processing is a fully open-access journal, with Impact Factor 2.5 reflecting the high quality of the journal and with more than 110,000 downloads a year from readers all over the world. The journal meets the needs of professionals and researchers working in all areas of Natural Language Processing. Its aim is to bridge the gap between traditional research in computational linguistics and the implementation of practical applications with potential real-world use.

In addition to submissions reporting original and unpublished research, we welcome survey papers. We also welcome special issue proposals on timely NLP topics of wide interest as well as squibs and book reviews. The journal invites novel studies employing the latest deep learning methods and large language models. It encourages submissions reporting the findings from multilingual and low-resourced language projects.

Both the Industry Watch and Emerging Trends columns (led by the master columnists Robert Dale and Ken Church respectively) continue to be inspirational, attracting diverse and worldwide readership, and are indeed real assets to the journal.

I would like to thank the Associate Editors Sandra Kübler, Burcu Can, and Diana Inkpen, the Book Editor Diana Maynard, the Industry Watch Editor Robert Dale, and the Emerging Trends Editor Ken Church as well as the entire Editorial Board who play an essential and indispensable role in the success of the journal.

I would like to welcome the new members of the Editorial Board who joined in 2023: Veronique Hoste, Young-Suk Lee, Maria Kunilovskaya, Asif Ekbal, Mo El-Haj, Erhard Hinrichs, Nguyen Le Minh, Rafael Muñoz, Vincent Ng, Partha Pakray, Tharindu Ranasinghe, Paul Rayson, Hossein Sameti, and Marcos Zampieri.

We are aiming to have a broad geographical coverage of the editorial board with a balance in both academia and industry representatives, as well as a gender balance.

I express my deep gratitude to all editorial assistants of the journal without whom the journal will hardly be able to operate: Dayana Abuin Rios, Isuri Anuradha, Maria Carmela Cariello, Marie Escribe, Amal Haddad Haddad, Maria Kunilovskaya, Gabriela Llull, and Daria Sokova. In particular, I would like to highlight Amal Haddad Haddad who has been exceptional and has not spared her time and energy in addressing (and supporting the journal in) every step of the submission, reviewing, and publication process.

I gratefully acknowledge the role of (and support from) Jess Miorini, Publisher at Cambridge University Press (CUP) who has been unreservedly supporting me and the journal since the moment she joined CUP in 2022. She has been indefatigable in assisting me and the editorial assistants in every step of the journal business.

I would also like to thank Lucie Hudson-Grant, Production Editor for being so helpful and efficient.

Finally, I sincerely appreciate all our readers and contributors for their continued interest in the journal and for their submissions and suggestions.

As Executive Editor of the journal Natural Language Processing, I am deeply passionate about making the journal an even greater success. I shall not spare any effort to make sure that the journal offers even more high-quality, interesting, and diverse content to the research community.