I was asked to write a brief contribution about the SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems (SIADS). I took over in January 2012 as editor-in-chief of SIADS from Tasso Kaper, who served in this capacity from 2005 to2011. SIADS was founded in 2001 as SIAM's first electronic-only journal (there are now two other electronic-only journals in SIAM's line-up): Marty Golubitsky served as SIADS's first editor-in-chief. With Marty and then Tasso at the helm, SIADS has grown dramatically over the years, from a little under 100 submissions in 2006 to close to 180 submissions in each of the past few years.

To quote from the journal's mission, the SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems publishes research articles on the mathematical analysis and modeling of dynamical systems and its application to the physical, engineering, life, and social sciences. One of the unique features of SIADS is that it is published in electronic form only. This allows authors to creatively use color, movies, and animated visualizations in their papers to enhance the exposition. Papers without color or multimedia content are, of course, welcome, too, and the review of papers is based solely on the quality of the scientific content.

SIADS has a broad readership, and this is reflected in the composition of its editorial board. The research interests of the 35 associate editors range from very applied areas such as signal transduction, biological networks and their control, motion of spacecraft, climate research, and data assimilation to more theoretical topics such as computational dynamics, bifurcation theory, spatial dynamics, pattern formation, and low-dimensional dynamical systems.

SIADS cares about applications. Papers that are purely mathematical in nature with no link to or motivation from applications are not so appropriate for the journal. Speaking personally, I am less inclined towards papers that pretend to be relevant to applications when they are not, while I like it if a paper is honest about what it can and cannot do for an application, as long as a genuine effort is being made. Of course, relevance to applications may mean different things in different areas. Perhaps one way to see whether a paper is appropriate for SIADS is to ask what motivates it: are the authors genuinely interested in understanding the application, or does the paper mainly consist of mathematics seeking an application to make it "look better"?

Why should one publish in SIADS? The foremost reason is that SIADS is, in my biased opinion, a top-quality journal with a broad readership that facilitates the dissemination of results to a wide community of researchers with an interest in dynamical systems and their applications. Another reason is that our field is ideally suited for using color and multimedia content to enhance the presentation of our work. And last, but not least, SIADS has a fast review process. Thanks to the efforts of the editorial board, SIAM staff, and a dedicated community of reviewers, the median time for a first-round review is 2.8 months; the median time from submission to acceptance is approximately 8 months.

I would like to end on a personal note. Given the outstanding leadership, inspiration, and dedication shown by Marty Golubitsky and Tasso Kaper as editors-in-chief of SIADS, it was with much trepidation that I agreed to take over from Tasso. I greatly appreciate Tasso's advice before, during and after the transition period. I am also very grateful to the editorial board for their dedication to the journal and for their comments and feedback, and to SIAM staff for their help; special thanks go to James Haines, SIADS's online content coordinator, who handles most of the administrative work for editors behind the scenes: Without James, SIADS would simply not be able to function.

Björn Sandstede

Biographical note from your Portal-Editor-in-Chief: Björn Sandstede started his career in Germany where he obtained his PhD from the University of Stuttgart in '93. Afterwards, he worked as a research fellow at the Weierstrass-Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics (WIAS) in Berlin. In '98 he moved to Ohio State University where he became full professor in '04. From '04 until '08 he was a research professor at the University of Surrey in England, before moving to Brown University where he has been ever since. In 2001, he won the first JD Crawford Prize from our Activity Group and in 2007 he won the SIAM Outstanding Paper Prize - to name but a few of the prizes he was awarded.

Besides being an excellent researcher, Björn Sandstede is also a very warm and friendly person to work with and to learn from. I personally have had the privilege to be guided by him for the past two years and I enjoyed every minute of it.