Dear colleagues,

We (Ann Bettencourt and Michael Zárate) would like to take this opportunity to thank the authors who contributed to on the 2022 SIPR issue as well as the SIPR editorial board for their helpful reviews and hard work. The SIPR 2022 issue is excellent on multiple levels (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17512409). The articles cover many current and pressing issues, and they are covered by some of the most influential scholars in the field. The 2022 issue includes two papers inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and a related article on white nationalism. It also includes two papers that address the COVID-19 pandemic, two papers that address disparities in STEM education for women and minorities, and one paper on deprovincialization. All of the papers make important theoretical and practical contributions. All of these authors did a fabulous job trying to “give away” psychology. In these papers, the authors did not shy away from controversy. Rather, we solicited articles from the premier researchers to address various controversies and to add insight and solutions to those controversial issues. We honestly believe that many or most of these articles will prove to be particularly important and seminal articles.

Embedded in all of these articles are many important policy suggestions; many of the articles also identify important new research directions. Those new research questions became apparent primarily when they tried to apply research to make policy recommendations. Once authors comprehensively summarize and apply the knowledge base toward making policy recommendations, new questions emerge. We encourage researchers to read these papers for the associated theoretical summaries, policy recommendations, and new research directions. These articles make it clear that psychology has much to offer to the societies across the globe.

We particularly appreciate our Editorial Board (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/17512409/editorial-board/editorial-board). The editorial team is diverse on many levels. Each board member is a highly qualified expert in their respective domains, and these domains provide insight into our goals for SIPR. SIPR uses very few ad-hoc reviewers and this is a very active board.

Moving forward:

We rarely take unsolicited proposals. Although we have considered one or two proposals, those are rare. Most often, we and our editorial team identify needs or topics and potential authors, and we solicit those proposals. The few unsolicited proposals that we have considered were written with the SPSSI and SIPR audience in mind – and by SPSSI researchers. Most other unsolicited proposals were poorly tailored to our mission or to our audience. We seek to publish papers on important timely topics. They need to present an established set of findings and offer solutions to important topics. SIPR seeks to summarize a literature, develop a strong and cohesive theoretical and empirical base, and apply that knowledge to important issues. We hope to address important and pressing issues, particularly once the field produces a body of knowledge that can then be implemented in the real world. 

SIPR is moving to an online system. We are working now with our publishers (Wiley) to make this happen. The online system should improve communication between the editors, researchers, and editorial board -- more on this as the system develops.

In summary, SIPR is moving forward to build upon the tremendous reputation the journal has earned, because of the great work of the editors before our term. The next edition is in the works with what we believe will be an equally interesting and important set of papers by another great group of researchers.