As Editor-in-Chief, I am pleased and indeed privileged to welcome you to our new journal, Forman Journal of Social Sciences (FJSS) and to introduce you to some of its salient features, though its website will describe a host of features at great length.

The FJSS is being published by the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Forman Christian College (A Chartered University), one of the oldest colleges in Lahore/ Pakistan, founded by Dr Charles W. Forman in 1864, as Mission College, to begin with.

In 1894, after Dr Forman’s death, the College was renamed ‘Forman Christian College’ in his honor and fond memory. The College moved to its present location in 1940 with a couple of social science subjects being taught already. It received the University Charter in 2003, to pursue both undergraduate and graduate degree programs, leading to PhD degree.

Soon after, the Faculty of Social Sciences was established which, presently, comprises six departments of Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology. Forman Christian College University (FCCU) is the first and, so far, the only liberal arts university in the country. It is also a member of the Global Liberal Arts Alliance.

The FJSS will be a double-blind, peer-reviewed, and open-access journal and will cover various disciplines of social sciences and their related fields of interest including Anthropology, Archaeology, Demography and Population Studies, Economics, Geography, Gender Studies, History, International Relations, Political Science, Psychology, Public Policy, and Sociology.

The FJSS will be a bi-annual journal, published in June and December, and will carry Articles, Review Articles, and Book Reviews. It will follow the APA Style for citations and will be indexed in all major indexing databases of research. There will be no fee for submission or publication. The FJSS will be published in English and will be international in its scope, both in terms of contributions and the editorial composition. It will follow COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) to ensure the ethical integrity of the contributions for publication.

Its International Advisory Board comprises a distinguished group of scholars, authors, and indeed leaders of their disciplines. It includes Prof. Matthew Cook (presently President of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies), Prof. Roger D. Long, Prof. Ian Talbot, Prof. Iftikhar H. Malik, Prof. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, and Dr Ghazala Rehman.

The FJSS will not only strengthen the research capacity of social scientists in the Faculty of Social Sciences at FCCU but, hopefully, will also help boost institutional growth of social sciences in the country, indeed social sciences in general. Its interdisciplinary nature may help social scientists even find that their research overlaps with, even compliments, research conducted in another discipline. This may not only promote interdisciplinary research but also, in the process, international cooperation in academia and the academic world. If so, the journal will have served its purpose well.

Before I conclude, however, I would like to thank our Patron, Dr Douglas Trimble, for his encouragement and support, Managing Editor, Dr Muhammad Younis and Editor, Dr Sara Rizvi Jafree, for all their devotion, hard work, persistence, abilities, and skills for making it possible for us to prepare and launch this journal. The journal will be launched in December 2021. I really look forward to it with much anticipation and hope!

God bless.

Dr Sikandar Hayat