I would like to welcome you to the last issue of BMJ Military Health for 2020. I am again writing this from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, which has given me a few minutes to reflect on the end of a momentous year for UK military medical publishing. When I was in Bagram this time last year, although I knew that the move to the new journal had been confirmed after years of me pushing, there were so many uncertainties. We finally published the first issue of BMJ Military Health in February 2020.1 Thanks to our publishers at BMJ, we have managed to continue both the volume and issue numbering and indexing from the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps (JRAMC). This will ensure that the legacy of that important publication continues, and we hope it will also mean that hard-fought wins such as our continually improving Impact Factor will be sustained. One of my biggest concerns as we transitioned between journals was that the name of the new journal would be unfamiliar to our regular readership and submission groups; I need not have been worried because even in the first few months, there has been an appreciable increase in submissions, particularly from our US colleagues across the waters.

One of my first plans for the new journal was to further develop our already diversifying editorial board. We had already recruited a few non-military members but recognised that we needed to find ways of opening our board membership more widely. Therefore, in June 2020, we advertised for new members in the online and print versions of the journal, on the journal homepage and through emails to pertinent organisations. We completed these …