The ASME Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science is celebrating its second year on the market. On this occasion, I would like to congratulate all members of our Journal Board, reviewers (their names are listed in this issue), authors, and readers. Below are the latest Journal statistics, changes, and plans for the future. Also, we would like to welcome the new Associate and Guest Editors:

New Associate Editors (AEs):

  • Walter Ambrosini (Ph.D.), University of Pisa, Italy

  • Xiaojing Liu (Ph.D.), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

New Guest Editors (GEs):

  • Giacomo Grasso (Ph.D.), ENEA, Italy

  • Yassin Hassan (Ph.D.), Texas A&M University, USA

  • Jean Koch (Ph.D.), Soreq NRC, Israel

  • Rachid Machrafi (Ph.D.), University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada

  • Arun Nayak (Ph.D.), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India

  • Thambiayah Nitheanandan (Ph.D.), Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Canada

  • Guoqiang Wang (Ph.D.), Westinghouse Electric Company, Inc.

  • Ilan Yaar (Ph.D.), NRCN, Israel

  • Wenyue Zheng (Ph.D.), Canmet MATERIALS, Natural Resources Canada

With these added editors, our editorial team represents 17 countries (Austria (1 AE); Canada (1 editor, 3 AEs, and 4 GEs); China (3 AEs); Czech Republic (1 AE); France (1 AE); Germany (3 AEs); Hungary (1 AE); India (1 AE and 1 GE); Japan (4 AEs); Mexico (1 AE); Russia (3 AEs); Slovenia (1 AE); South Korea (1 AE), Ukraine (1 editor); United Kingdom (1 AE); and USA (10 AEs and 2 GEs)) with nuclear-power reactors; and Israel (2 GEs) and Italy (1 AE and 1 GE) without nuclear-power reactors—in total 37 AEs, 10 GEs, and 1 editor; 1 AE and the editor represent two countries each.

During our second year, we have published four issues (as planned) with 94 papers, which are twice those within the first year. Table 1 lists countries (in total—24) and agencies, organizations, universities, and companies (in total—80) from which are authors of published papers. Analysis of the data listed in Table 1 for 2016 compared to similar data for 2015 (see our Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, from January of 2015) shows that a number of papers have been submitted and published for the first time from the following countries: (1) Austria; (2) Bulgaria; (3) Finland; (4) Hungary; (5) Jordan; (6) Netherlands; (7) Norway; (8) Pakistan; (9) Poland; (10) Spain; (11) Sweden; and (12) UK. Also, we have published two Special Issues (SIs) with selected papers from:

  1. 1.

    Special Issue (Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2016) on the 7th International Symposium on Supercritical Water-cooled Reactors (ISSCWR-7), March 15–18, 2015, Helsinki, Finland: Thomas Schulenberg, Dr.Ing., Associate Editor, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany.

  2. 2.

    Special Issue (Vol. 2, No. 4, October 2016) on the 23rd International Conference On Nuclear Engineering (ICONE-23), May 17–21, 2015, Chiba, Japan:

    • Asif H. Arastu, Ph.D., Associate Editor, Unisont Engineering, Inc., USA

    • Leon Cizelj, Ph.D., Associate Editor, Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia

    • Jovica Riznic, Ph.D., Guest Editor, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), Canada

Our plans for the near future are as follows:

  1. 1.

    Publish four issues with approximately 100 papers to keep “waiting time” for papers as short as possible;

  2. 2.

    Publish two SIs with selected papers from important international symposium(s)/conference(s) and/or on special topic(s) within nuclear-engineering area.

  3. 3.

    Attract new papers from around the world for 2017 and 2018 issues.

Many authors and readers ask about ratings of our Journal in various international systems. The response is that we are required to publish on a regular basis four issues annually with high-quality papers within 3 years (1 year left for NERS), and after that, our Journal will be ranked on the international level in these systems.

And finally, we hope that you will join us in this new Journal as authors of submitted manuscripts and as reviewers. This is indeed a unique international journal, which combines research, industrial operating experience, new designs/systems, safety analysis, applications of nuclear energy, and many other related topics that change the world and our lives for the better. We also hope you will enjoy reading the papers that follow.

On the behalf of the NERS Editorial Board.