Transfer of scientific knowledge to practitioners: Do we need a reform of the journal policy?

Milberg (2014, Applied Vegetation Science, this issue) argues that scientific journals do not adequately respond to the practical needs of vegetationmanagement. To bridge the gap between scientists and practitioners, he proposes a reform of applied vegetation research and of the journal Applied Vegetation Science.Asthe Chief Editors,we agree that it is vital tomake the results of our studies accessible to decision-makers andmanagers, but this cannot be at the expense of scientific research, or its publication. International scientific journals are source of theore- tical foundations for applications, therefore they cannot be transformed to pri- marily solve practical issues while giving up their focus on understanding processes.