EDITORIAL

Editorial

Editorial

Ana Alexandra Osório

Editor-in-chief

Dear readers,

It is with great satisfaction that I present the second issue of the 22^nd volume of the Journal Psychology: Theory and Practice - the first under the new Editorial Team direction. I am honored to lead this publication, one of the journals in the upper strata of Qualis em Psicologia in Brazil, and I thank my colleagues' confidence in the journal. I also express my commitment to continue and consolidate the excellent work done by the Editors who preceded me and to walk new paths to strengthen the quality and visibility of this journal. We continue to be a journal with a broad scope, in which several areas of Psychology find representation. The journal Psychology: Theory and Practice has five sections - "Psychological Assessment," "Psychology and Education," "Social Psychology," "Clinical Psychology," and "Human Development" - led by Editors who are experts in their respective areas. This diversity has been part of the Journal's DNA since its creation in 1999. It favors the dissemination of high-quality studies in various areas of basic and applied Psychological Science, expanding knowledge about psychological phenomena in different themes and populations. Combined with this focus on diversity, we will continue to raise the theoretical and methodological rigor requirements in the evaluation of the manuscripts we receive.

For this cycle that is just beginning, our Editorial Team has defined two main challenges - expanding the international reach and impact of publications and making the editorial process more agile.

Regarding the first point, it is effectively a case of continuing a work already started by previous Editors. Since 2017, all accepted articles have been published in English (and may have a Portuguese or Spanish version). The journal is indexed in several national and international databases, and we continue to work actively for inclusion in the world's largest scientific literature databases. With this, we intend to offer greater visibility to the articles published in our journal, helping authors to reach an ever-wider audience, catalyzing their internationalization. Another initiative concerns the composition of our illustrious Editorial Board. I begin by thanking the members of the previous Editorial Board for their support - your seal will always be a source of great pride for us. I welcome the members of the new Editorial Board, leading researchers in their fields of study in Psychology, working in seven countries (besides Brazil), spread over three continents. The changes in the Editorial Board - more streamlined and internationalized - reflect requirements for indexing in international databases, but also our desire for the journal to reach more and more audiences abroad.

As for the second point, increasing the agility of the editorial process is a major concern of our team. We know, even from our experience as authors, how unnecessarily long a process can be frustrating. Also, the delay in the publication of the manuscripts may imply losses of innovation and originality of the works and even generate professional consequences. Processing times depend on several factors, not all of which can be controlled by the journal. However, and within our reach, we are improving our editorial processes in order to significantly reduce processing time. In this context, I would like to share some of the initiatives implemented: 1) we mapped our entire editorial process, identifying potential bottlenecks; 2) we created an internal register of processing times for each section, in order to continuously evaluate our success in the effective reduction of times; 3) we increased the number of Editors in the sections with the highest volume of submissions. We are also studying ways to automate some processes, using publication management software. I would like to give a special thanks to all the ad-hoc reviewers that collaborate with the journal, generously donating their time and applying their expertise in the careful evaluation of the manuscripts. Part of our success in reducing processing time - which we hope will happen significantly - will certainly be achieved with the quick opinions of the evaluators who collaborate with us. In short, regarding this second challenge, our goal is to reach an average processing time of between 6 and 8 months - from submission by the authors to the final decision.

In this editorial, I presented the two main challenges that, together with the Associate Editors and Section Editors, we defined as priorities for the Journal Psychology: Theory and Practice. On the one hand, the expansion of the journal's international reach and impact and, on the other, the increase in the speed of editorial processing. We desire to position the journal as a leader in the higher strata of Psychology in the country, as well as to capture the interest of international researchers for the publication of their high-level works. I conclude by thanking each of the Associate and Section Editors for their partnership and great generosity - the time and attention they dedicate to the journal are crucial for us to fulfill the ambitious goals we set ourselves. Thanks also to the members of the technical staff and Mackenzie Editor for all the indispensable support.