An extraordinary year

An extraordinary yearThe year 2020 brought unprecedented challenges, and opportunities to reassess and reaffirm our values.As our anniversary year draws to a close, we reflect on achievements and areas for improvement. At Nature Communications, we started 2020 on a positive note in anticipation of our upcoming 10th anniversary in April of that year-then the coronavirus pandemic struck.All of our offices worldwide closed, forcing our editors into lockdown, often repeatedly throughout the year.Working from home they juggled work, care of dependents, lack of suitable workspaces, and mental and physical wellbeing issues.We are thankful that we could continue to work from home, unlike many others.We know how difficult the year has been for our authors and reviewers, who faced many challenges while research institutes closed and demands on their time soared.Our thoughts have been particularly with those who have to share their time between research and other, equally important, responsibilities.We urge funders, universities and other stakeholders to take measures to address the conditions under which caregivers (who tend to be disproportionately women) have continued to work in the past year.On our side, we hope that our commitment to disregard from our editorial evaluation any competing works published while a submission to our journal is under review or under revisionand to remain open-minded when submissions overlap with other recently published works-will help relieve some of the pressure our authors feel.We are most grateful to all of our editors and other team members who worked extra hard to keep the journal running to the best of their abilities in the last year, as