The new Editorial Board

In this first issue of the Netherlands Heart Journal in 2017, I would like to introduce to you a new editorial board, consisting of an editor-in-chief and five deputy editors. It is an Amsterdam-based editorial board to facilitate close interaction between the board members. It is the ambition of the new editorial board to further improve the journal’s current impact factor as an index of its quality and success. The attractiveness of the journal for authors may be enhanced by offering a rapid review system, which requires close collaboration between the associate editors and the national editorial and international advisory board. Moreover, the Netherlands Heart Journal is an open access, peer review journal offering services without payment for authors in contrast with numerous other open access journals. Professor Jan J. Piek (Fig. 1) completed his residency program in cardiology at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam (1984–1989), followed by a subspecialisation in interventional cardiology. He finished his thesis on the coronary collateral circulation in 1992. He was appointed as Professor of Clinical Cardiology in 1999. He has been co-chairman of the Department of Cardiology since 2004 and he was appointed director of the AMC Heart Center in 2008. The interests of the research group of Professor Piek include coronary haemodynamics, the inflammatory response in acute myocardial infarction and atherosclerosis, and the formation of coronary collateral circulation. Yigal Pinto (Fig. 2) was trained as a cardiologist in Groningen in the Netherlands (1995–2001), and worked