'If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change'
"Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come è, bisogna che tutto cambi"
(Il gattopardo, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa)

It is now few months that I have been appointed as new editor in chief of the Veterinaria Italiana and first of all I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Ferdinando Arnolfo, the Director of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise 'G. Caporale', and his staff for the honour they have bestowed on me. It is for me a very new and exciting challenge.

I firmly believe the journal has the potential to turn into a successful and important voice in the scientific veterinary community. As you might be aware, Veterinaria Italiana is an indexed journal that recently received the impact factor, thus acquiring international recognition alongside major scientific journals.

In view of this, it is only right and proper to acknowledge the previous team for their collective work for bringing the journal to its the current position. First of all, I would like to thank the previous director, Vincenzo Caporale, who has always strongly believed in Veterinaria Italiana, putting in a great deal of effort and resources when others doubted the success of this initiative. Special thanks are also due to the previous associate editor, Gill Dilmitis, who has been one of the pillars of the journal taking care of all author needs always with extreme enthusiasm and competency. I am afraid that Mariarosaria Taddeo, the new associate editor, and I will have the daunting task of meeting their high standards and level of competence; even more so because we realise that, as in numerous other activities, it is easy to start but it is always harder to maintain the status quo.

Nonetheless, if on one hand we know that it is a difficult task, on the other hand we are sure that we and the other team members will do our best to improve the current position of the journal. We have already created a new and modern format for Veterinaria Italiana so that it may compete with other international and better known scientific journals. Soon Veterinaria Italiana will be provided with an electronic platform and the DOI (Digital Object Identifier). Both, I am sure will be extremely beneficial to editors, referees, and authors alike. Many other innovations will be introduced to improve the readability and quality. All these changes, however, will not distract from our main purpose which is to provide information about new research results on veterinary and public health field, ensuring their reliability and integrity through relevant, strong and comprehensive proofs.

Veterinaria Italiana will still represent the voice of authors who do not have the opportunity of disseminating their results widely, of course, being the Italian journal in Veterinary field with the highest impact factor, it is privileged to have the opportunity of publishing the results of the best Italian research teams on public and animal health.

For myself, I know that a journal is a powerful educational tool. I will try to ensure independence of editorial work and good editorial practice as defined by international editorial organizations, bearing in mind that the work invested in a journal is never wasted as it stimulates and provokes research and culture of scientific communication.