The motivation for this endeavor is to address the growing frustration among many applied scientists and engineers, who wish to publish their pioneering work in high-impact, interdisciplinary journals. High visibility/ high impact journals, in general, focus on the structure and function of the underlying science, and see technology development and technological innovation as less important. This focus has historically rejected many a Nobel Laureate's critical paper (e.g. Yalow and Berson's Radioimmunoassay, Paul Lautebur's NMR/MRI work, Kary Mullis' PCR paper, just to name a few). Certain clinical journals do provide high impact, but only after all the translational issues have been resolved to fully realize the application in patients. This "Catch-22" plagues applied scientists and engineers in all of today's important disciplines, but especially those working in the fields related to the Life and Health Science and Technology.

This limitation also has a negative impact on the entire process of research transfer and commercialization (or research translation). Such transfer of new, innovative technological ideas is best served by a proper means of publication of the initial scientific breakthrough, where the proof of concept is established and the actual innovation occurs and proceeds. Publication of these important advances tend, in our opinion, to suffer from, on the one hand, non-appreciative policies by the above-mentioned high impact science journals, and on the other hand, from the fact that somewhat less desirable, lower impact journals typically fail to garner adequate attention, and often lead to a lack of adequate funding. The resulting consequences of both constitute a virtual graveyard where many truly innovative ideas are buried.

In response to these growing concerns, which we know many of our esteemed international colleagues share, we are delighted to announce a new, high impact-striving yet inclusive by definition journal, called Innovation and Emerging Technologies. In this new journal, we aim to capture all work that is innovative, enabling, transformative, and early in its development with adequate proof of concept. We wish to emphasize the technology and its impact, and are not necessarily concerned if the paper is not "hypothesis driven".

Our publishing partner, World Scientific (WSPC) is fiercely dedicated to making the new Innovation and Emerging Technologies journal attain, a high impact factor as soon as possible, an effort which both of us and our colleagues on the Editorial Board intend to support wholeheartedly. This, of course, includes a very aggressive marketing and outreach plan. In this respect, we feel that the global reach and operation of ICP / WSPC, with their special strength in Asian Emerging markets, many of which have become hotbeds of innovation and new technological ideas, make this journal endeavor especially exciting.

Professor Martin "Maish" Yarmush
Founding Director, Center for Engineering in Medicine Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital Paul and Mary Monroe Professor of Science and Engineering Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering Rutgers University

Professor Mehmet Toner
Founding Director, NIH BioMEMs Resource Center Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital Helen Andrus Benedict Professor of Surgery and Bioengineering Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology Harvard Medical School