guest editorial editorial office to move from singapore to

7/23/2019 Guest Editorial Editorial Office to Move From Singapore To

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Guest Editorial: Editorial Office to Move from Singapore toHong Kong

Keywords Centre of gravity; Drying technology; Editor-in-Chief; Innovation; R&D

As of September 2013, our Editor-in-Chief since 1988,Professor Arun S. Mujumdar, will move until the end of 2013 to the esteemed Chemical & Biomolecular Engineer-ing Department of The Hong Kong University of Science& Technology in Kowloon, Hong Kong. With this move,the 13-year location of the center of gravity of dryingR&D will move only a short distance from Singapore butremain in East Asia for a while before moving back toCanada, where it had been located continuously from1975 until 2000. This is a direct effect of globalization, of course. From the bottom of the list as contributor toarchival drying literature among some 50 countries,Singapore rose to among the top-3 position for nearly 13years while Professor Mujumdar was with the MechanicalEngineering Department at NUS. As Prof. Mujumdar isthe world’s top contributor to archival drying literatureand the principal mentor of most active drying researchersaround the globe, this should come as no surprise, how-ever. Singapore will now move back to its original rankin drying R&D.

The publication statistics of Prof. Mujumdar at thestage of his retirement from NUS are unusually impressive;the annual average number of archival journal papers overthe past three years was 32, with citations each yearapproaching 1000. These numbers tell only half the story,since he also averaged authorship=editorship of two books,three e-books, and 16 issues of this journal per annum overthis period. Added to this was the large number of keynoteand plenary lectures, internal technical reports, andtechnical papers at numerous conferences, as well asorganization of one to two major international conferencesannually. He will continue this activity for the journal andwill indeed produce more books over the next few years,

including the fourth edition of the already massive bibleof industrial drying, viz. Handbook of Industrial Drying,as well as a new enhanced version of his popular Guide

to Industrial Drying. He will also be active with IDS,ADC, WFCFD, etc.

Since Singapore is not a stronghold of R&D in industrialdrying operations, Prof. Mujumdar indeed switched hismain research thrust at NUS to local interests in coolingof electronics, energy systems, and thermal management

of PEM fuel cells and battery packs, as well as processmetallurgy, mineral processing, and underground mineventilation—all of which are far removed from the mainthrust of his research areas of over 25 years. This is a daunt-ing task, as it involved starting from scratch in a differentdiscipline as well. It is noteworthy that he made significantcontributions to each one of these new areas. Interestingly,one of his papers on nanofluids attracted over 520 citations(and counting), and a recent paper on coil heat transferattracted over 3000 downloads in just 18 months.Most academics would have simply dropped drying R&Dto make room for totally new areas. In his case, Prof.Mujumdar took up the challenge to continue and growthe drying R&D effort through global linkages despite thismajor handicap. One of his goals was to keep the momen-tum of drying R&D worldwide through the journal, andconferences like IDS, ADC, IADC and WFCFD. To eachhe made major contributions while emphasizing differentresearch projects at NUS to meet local conditions.Withdrawing abruptly from these efforts, which he foundedor co-founded, could be a detrimental blow to drying R&Daround the world. This was extremely challenging anddemanded 12–14 hour days. He did this successfully and

mentored a number of active researchers who would noteven have thought of drying R&D but for his mentorship.Within just 13 years at NUS, Prof. Mujumdar generatedsome 270 archival journal papers and consistently attractedhuge number of citations for this field. Clearly, this helpedthe Mechanical Engineering Department at NUS riserapidly in its global rankings. Interestingly, hardly any localresearch resources were used for the extra boost to rankingthrough drying R&D.

Per unit of research resources, financial and human,the return on Prof. Mujumdar’s drying R&D is definitelypeerless on the world scale. He helped to raise the profileof this journal by personally contributing most of his drying

papers to it. Without this, it was unlikely that other impor-tant authors would have supported the journal. Once itsimpact factor approached 2.0, many more authors startedcoming to the journal who previously were on the sidelines.Prof. Mujumdar indeed famously wrote to a potentialauthor who asked about the impact factor before submit-ting his paper, ‘‘Think of what you can do for the journalrather than what the journal can do for you.’’ It is easy to

jump on the bandwagon based on previous contributors’

Drying Technology, 31: 1192–1193, 2013

Copyright# 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 0737-3937 print=1532-2300 online

DOI: 10.1080/07373937.2013.808516

1192



hard work. Unfortunately, this is happening all over theglobe. Only a few authors are typically responsible for thevisibility and stature of the most highly respected journals.

Readers should please Google or visit the journal’s Website for further details of Prof. Mujumdar’s location andR&D activities, which will continue for several yearswithout drop in pace. He will mentor a selected number

of Ph.D. students in several countries, and will also writea book on innovation. His monograph on R&D andglobalization will also be completed in the next year or two.

Future editorials will provide more details.

Sachin V. Jangam

Singapore

GUEST EDITORIAL 1193



C o p y r i g h t o f D r y i n g T e c h n o l o g y i s t h e p r o p e r t y o f T a y l o r & F r a n c i s L t d a n d i t s c o n t e n t m a y

n o t b e c o p i e d o r e m a i l e d t o m u l t i p l e s i t e s o r p o s t e d t o a l i s t s e r v w i t h o u t t h e c o p y r i g h t h o l d e r ' s

e x p r e s s w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n . H o w e v e r , u s e r s m a y p r i n t , d o w n l o a d , o r e m a i l a r t i c l e s f o r

i n d i v i d u a l u s e .

guest editorial editorial office to move from singapore to

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