On being promoted to a personal chair in 1993 I chose the title of Professor of Informatics, specifically acknowledging Donna Haraway's definition of the term as the "technologies of information [and communication] as well as the biological, social, linguistic and cultural changes that initiate, accompany and complicate their development" [1]. In the intervening time the word informatics itself has been appropriated by those more focused on computer science, although why an alternative term is needed for a well-understood area is not entirely clear. Indeed the term is used both as an alternative term and as an additional one--i.e. On the other hand the word informatics itself has become widely used in conjunction with a host of other terms--e.g. This is the basis for the broad sweep of topics and disciplines that we plan to cover in this new journal.It has the general title Informatics, which might lead some to see it as an outlet purely for papers in computer science, software engineering, and artificial intelligence (AI), but a glimpse at the four sub-sections that we intend to cover should dispel that view.