We are pleased to announce that Dr. Sergio Busquets-Monge has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Electrical and Autonomous Vehicles” in Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292).

Dr. Sergio Busquets-Monge is an Associate Professor at the Electronic Engineering Department at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya—BarcelonaTech (UPC), Barcelona, Spain. He acquired his M.S. degree in electrical engineering and Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering at UPC, Barcelona, in 1999 and 2006, respectively, and an M.S. degree in electrical engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 2001. He works in the area of power electronics applied to electric vehicles and renewable energy systems. His current research interests include modular and scalable power converter design and multilevel conversion for electric vehicles.

He has been involved in more than 30 funded research projects in the area of power electronics, involving the development of novel topologies, modeling, modulations, controls, applications, and design optimization. He is currently participating as principal investigator in two European research and innovation projects and one research national project focused on the development of novel power electronics technology for electric vehicles.

He is the author of more than 100 works, including more than 35 papers in international scientific journals and more than 65 papers in international scientific conferences, with an h-index of 30.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Sergio Busquets-Monge, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?

The Electronics journal is relatively young, but with the potential to become a consolidated reference journal with a good reputation in the future. I agree with the general publishing policy, which I believe is well-aligned with the current and future needs of the research community: publish articles in open access, a quick peer review and publication process to guarantee a minimum quality but without forcing large revision changes that require substantial time and efforts and do not typically bring significant added value, fast publication of the research results to speed-up the global community research advancements, possibility to comment online the articles to dynamically establish their significance, foster the exchange of ideas, foster collaboration, etc.

The participation of known researchers in my field within the Editorial Board also helped raise confidence in the journal’s opportunities.

I have personally spent much more time preparing and reviewing my own publications in traditional journals than doing the corresponding technical research. This does not seem right. I want to explore other editorial options.

2. What is your vision for the journal?

I think the journal should follow its current editorial policy, outlined above, to convince the community of the advantages of this approach. I think that in the future it is possible to transform journals into some sort of research social networks for researchers, where traditional papers are mixed with video presentations, comments, etc. From this point of view, maybe the journal should try to promote and facilitate the incorporation of video presentations of the articles to make them more appealing.

Eventually, if a good portion of highly reputed researchers find value in this novel publication approach, others will follow.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

Very promising. Electronics, and particularly power electronics, are enabling technologies for the current technological challenges. Electrical and autonomous vehicles are key in the current transportation and energy revolution. Very few technologies are so important for the current society goals.

4. What do you think of the development of open access in the publishing field?

I think it is fundamental. For the sake of humanity, knowledge should end up being open to everyone, not only those who can afford paying a subscription fee. A big portion of the research is funded with the taxes paid by the whole society. Therefore, the benefit for the whole society should be maximized.

We warmly welcome Dr. Sergio Busquets-Monge in his new role as Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to his guidance in helping “Electrical and Autonomous Vehicles” reach many more milestones.