It’s our anniversary! One year ago the npj Science of Learning journal published its first article, on how taste memories are laid down and maintained. Since then, we’ve covered a lot of ground: the individual differences that shape human learning potential, the way our brain regions coordinate their activity during different phases of memory, genetic influences on educational attainment, a new model that accounts for why different phases of learning are best served by different learning strategies, and many more. It’s great to see that the articles we are publishing cover the breadth of the new science of learning, true to the interdisciplinary nature of our journal – we know that we are on the right track.

What’s more, we are attracting quality submissions that are having an impact in the community. In today’s publishing world, quick insight into the impact of a paper is available thanks to Altmetrics. Currently, two of our publications have an Altmetric score in the top 1% of similarly aged articles; a further three score in the top 5%, and another three are in the top 10%. For a journal that’s just 12 months old, this is pleasing to see, and gives us confidence that this Altmetric attention will, in time, translate into more traditional academic citations.

Finally, I want to talk about this site – our community. While the journal itself is where the cutting edge research is published, in many ways the Community is the heart of the endeavour. Here, teachers, students, parents and academics can find easy to understand discussions of the latest research, debate the merits of particular educational practices, and discover what is going on at the interface of education and the brain sciences. Since the launch of the Community in September last year, our member numbers have more than tripled. I really hope this growth continues, because a strong community will help realise the mission of the journal – to deepen our understanding of learning so education can be improved.