Duncan Dowson's editorship of Wear

Professor Duncan Dowson served as Editor of Wear from 1983 to 1998 during an important period for the development of tribology. The journal, which was founded in 1957, had had only two previous Editors, Geert Salomon and Douglas Scott, and during his 15-year tenure as Editor Duncan continued to develop it as a forum for high-quality research. In his first editorial message, ¹ Duncan paid warm tributes to his predecessors and recognised the challenges in understanding and controlling wear. In 1984, he edited a set of invited review papers to celebrate the 100th volume of the journal, ² which even today remains a valuable entry point into some of the earlier literature. Twelve years later when he wrote his introduction to the 200th volume, also containing invited review articles, ³ Duncan could point to the substantial recent advances that had been made in understanding the fundamental wear processes in metals, polymers and ceramics. In his valedictory editorial, ⁴ he noted the tremendous progress that had been achieved in reducing wear in practical applications over recent decades.

From the outset Wear had been an international journal; when Duncan started as Editor half of all its contributions came from the USA and the UK, with Japan and India being the next most-represented countries. Under Duncan's care, the journal expanded substantially, with an increased international scope. The number of papers published more than doubled over 15 years: many of the new authors came from China which had hardly been represented at all in the early 1980s but by 1997/1998 contributed more than one-sixth of the total.

To me personally, as his successor as Editor, and as a researcher in tribology and more recently in the history of the subject, Duncan provided very wise and ever-friendly support, and inspiration as a careful researcher and an energetic and imaginative scientist and engineer.

Ian Hutchings, Editor-in-Chief, Wear, 1998–2012.