Adieu and welcome

Abstract

During the 1980s, development of trains running safely without driver or of cars with ABS and ESC confronted many industries, especially automotive and aerospace industries, with the need for trustworthy simulation tools to improve their products quickly and at relatively low costs. Already in 1986 an IFAC symposium on Simulation in Control and in 1994 the first MATHMOD conference on Mathematical Modelling gathered each some 200 engineers and scientists to exchange ideas on how to establish trustworthy and easy-to-handle models for research and development. Moreover, very active working groups on simulation and modelling existed – primarily in Germany, the Benelux and in Scandinavia – with close relations to the industries of the respective countries. Therefore, it was not really astonishing for me when in 1993 a letter reached me from the Publishing House Swets & Zeitlinger telling that well-known experts from German Universities of Technology had made the suggestion to launch a new journal on Mathematical Modelling of Engineering Systems and, asking for my thoughts on that idea. After intensive discussions on the scope, the way of reviewing and the possibility of special issues, the idea became concrete. An Editorial Board was formed with S. MarsiliLibelli (Italy), P. C. Müller (Germany), D. J. Murray-Smith (UK) and R. E. Skelton (USA) as Associate Editors and with 25 further members from Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Slowenia, Sweden and USA. After intensive discussions, the title of the journal could be fixed to be ‘Mathematical Modelling of Systems’ with the subtitle ‘Methods, Tools and Applications in Engineering and Related Sciences’. In June 1995 the first issue was published with papers dealing with modelling of an activated sludge process, of marine vehicles, of magnetic bearings, of a propeller-driven type aircraft and of electromagnetic losses in electric machinery with authors from Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium. These papers demonstrated quite well the original main focus of the journal. It was understood right from the beginning that all papers submitted to the journal must be peer-reviewed by at least two experts. At the beginning, this was not as easy as it is now. In the 1990s authors had to submit three paper copies via ordinary mail and these copies were sent in the same way to the reviewers – how comfortable can this be done now due to email and websites. There was also the agreement that papers dealing with an application must define not only the purpose of the model and the assumptions made in its development but that also model validation must be discussed carefully as models without validation, i.e. without comparison of model behaviour with real-world observation are of little use. Equally, comparison with already existing models must be provided whenever appropriate. MATHEMATICAL AND COMPUTER MODELLING OF DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS 2020, VOL. 26, NO. 4, 301–303 https://doi.org/10.1080/13873954.2020.1788809