40 Years NQHR, Transfer of Editor-in-Chief, and Going Open Access
| Author | Antoine Buyse,Elmin Omičević |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09240519221114757 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
40 Years NQHR, Transfer of
Editor-in-Chief, and Going Open
Access
This year, 2022, the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights is celebrating its 40th anniversary. In
this editorial, we will go into that celebratory milestone as well as announce a new editor-in-chief
for our Quarterly and inform our readers about our exciting pilot to go open access.
40 Years
In 1981, the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) was founded as a centre to further
research and teaching about human rights in the Netherlands and beyond. A year later, in 1982,
SIM started publishing a newsletter which soon was re-baptised the Netherlands Quarterly of
Human Rights. Quickly evolving from an overview of the work of the institute into a full-fledged
academic journal, the Quarterly, or NQHR as it became known, has grown into one of the world’s
leading human rights journals. Over the years it has taken many shapes and forms, both in its
appearance and contents, adapting like a chameleon to the changing landscape of academia.
From self-publishing to long and good cooperation –first with our publisher Intersentia and,
since 2017, with the esteemed international publishing house SAGE –the journal has continued
to grow and reach larger audiences. We have evolved from providing regional and global human
rights updates and book reviews to our current shape of a strong focus on publishing academic arti-
cles. Through our quite unique triple-anonymized peer review system and rigorous quality checks,
we have been able to not only publish work from the ‘big names’in the field but also from countless
up-and-coming academics, many of whom have gone on to become established experts themselves.
To mark our 40th anniversary by way of public service to the broader academic community, we
organised, early in 2022, an online workshop for early-career researchers about how peer reviewers
assess articles, which attracted a large and engaged audience. We also gathered a special online
meeting of our international board, which reflected the committed community around the journal.
Transfer of Editor-in-Chief
The 40th anniversary of our journal is also an appropriate time for me, Antoine Buyse, to step
down as editor-in-chief and hand over the baton to a direct colleague. I will remain on the journal’s
executive board. After succeeding the late professor Fried van Hoof almost a decade ago, standing
at the helm of this journal has not just been a great privilege and honour –as is almost a cliché to
say, yet still deeply felt –but also both a challenging (think editorial diplomacy with authors and
reviewers) and very joyful experience (think reading great new articles and the solid cooperation
within our board).
It is wonderful to see that the small sapling that the NQHR once was has grown into a solid tree,
deeply rooted in the expertise and work of our international board and countless other peer
reviewers, with our very dedicated executive board, from all regions of the world, and our publisher
Editorial
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights
2022, Vol. 40(3) 209–210
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/09240519221114757
journals.sagepub.com/home/nqh
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