With this set up of an electronic journal which should be able to react faster and less complicated on needs of publishing and discussion we want to comply with this interest. It provides scientists to present to the scientific community their research results of immediate interest, their new proposals of ideas, methods or approaches, and drafts before publishing them by official public platforms of their disciplines.

In addition to this the journal establishes and improves the direct interactive exchange of users. Every paper will be combined with a commenting function which gives to the authors not only the opportunity to discuss but also to revise and change their conceptions depending on the ongoing discussion. As a result of such an opening up of contributions we expect a higher readiness to publish even those contributions which their authors think to be in need of more discussion and therefore being not fit enough to be published in formal peer reviewed journals.

A faster and more current reception of new publications we expect from reviews of not only books with special importance to activity theory but also of relevant internet discussions in this respect, and from the arranging of personal and subject registers including a search function. In order to support the theoretical and methodological discussion we start to establish a special glossary of cultural historical psychology and activity theory beginning with five or six key words (including references) per volume from classical works of Vygotsky or Leontiev which may support and intensify the appropriation and interpretation of cultural historical psychology and activity theory respectively. As we hope our authors will share the expectation that the benefits of this arrangement adequate to modern communication possibilities justifies the slight extra work we ask them for.

In particular this journal will contribute to draw a lively picture of activity theory in Germany by reporting the annual Ohrbeck Conferences where since 2004 mostly German scholars present and discuss their works on e.g. early child development, speech and dialog, gender and identity development, education and instruction, New Media, theory of learning, encouraging strategies for handicapped children related to the current struggles on inclusion in schools, as well as on anthropology, history of psychology or methodology and so on. In doing so the journal follows explicitly the tradition of the Ohrbeck Conferences to give priority to application issues on the one hand and to specify on the other hand consequently the approach of activity theory within the wide spectrum of other theoretical approaches and to explain its openness and interface to these theories. The basic principle of interdisciplinarity founding this concept is: neither ignore nor embrace.

The journal addresses deliberately to junior scientists providing them with a platform to report on and discuss about their new creative and innovative investigations without any proof of their affiliation to cultural historical psychology or activity theory in particular.

This journal expands and complements the publication possibilities of our website “ICH-Sciences.de”, which up to now encloses the ICHS-book series, the documentation of classical texts of cultural historical psychology and activity theory, the archive of papers and contributions and starting with 2011 the Yearbook of the Lurija-Society. We hope to meet the increased interest with this expanded offer, and appreciate any feed back, critics and proposals of improvement.

Georg Rückriem and Hartmut Giest