Rationale

For the past four years, hundreds of outstanding professionals from many fields of study and from many parts of the world have attended our annual Emotional Intelligence Research Institutes. Numerous exciting and valuable collaborative research projects are underway, and our colleagues have suggested the formation of an international association to encourage future networking and collaboration. We want to encourage research and application projects that demonstrate the value of EI to people worldwide. A major vehicle for accomplishing this goal involves the founding of our own professional organization and publishing a high quality journal to disseminate research findings and document program outcomes. Professional colleagues and doctoral students are completing excellent research and application projects with our work. The lengthy and archaic review procedures employed by most national and international journals result in a lag time of more than a year between submission and publication. The International Journal of Emotional Intelligence Research (IJEIR) will offer a focused avenue of research publication for independent scholars and experienced consultants. Our annual conference will continue to be a quality learning experience for us and our professional colleagues, and we would like to emphasize quality rather than numbers and continue to improve the quality of presentations.