It is a great honor to write the editorial for the inaugural issue of ACM Transactions of Human-Robot Interaction. This is an exciting time for the HRI community. The journal is a descendant of the Journal of Human-Robot Interaction (JHRI), which has been successful for many years. Under the umbrella of ACM Transactions, I am sure it will go from strength to strength.

What I am Excited About for HRI. There have been a lot of significant changes in the HRI community over the past 20 years. These include the formation of the highly selective and respected annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, which is attracting an ever growing audience and was followed by the provision of a dedicated outlet for HRI research with the formation of the Journal of Human-Robot Interaction. I have also seen the impact of discussions on how research in such an interdisciplinary area can be reviewed fairly. While this still remains a main challenge, the formation of different themes of submissions to the conference in terms of user studies, technical work, HRI design and theory, and methods is the right direction forward. Years ago, I was told by several active researchers that there seems to be only one “recipe” for how to get accepted by the HRI conference; thus, the current realization that different types of work exist that need to be evaluated differently is a major advance. I have also observed extensive discussions on reviewing methods as such, which is not only highly valuable for HRI but also other communities and conferences since, naturally, HRI researchers are attending and being involved in the organization of a range of conferences and journals. The impact of those discussions, therefore, goes beyond the HRI community.