It is with great pleasure and enthusiasm that we take the opportunity to introduce the new free-access online peer-reviewed periodical Journal of Experimental Stroke and Translational Medicine (JESTM). The creation of this journal is largely the brainchild of Dr Shimin Liu, and he should be highly commended for all his efforts in bringing it to fruition. As its title suggests, the journal is intended principally to gather and disseminate new knowledge in the field of experimental stroke in order to facilitate future translation and development of new clinical stroke treatments. The creation of the journal is timely as in recent years there has been increasing concern over the failure of neuroprotective therapeutic modalities that have been shown to be effective in animal studies but that have failed at clinical trial. It is anticipated that the journal will help address the issues that have hampered this exciting and challenging field by publishing experimental, review and opinion articles: i) promoting the understanding of stroke injury mechanisms, ii) identifying and characterising new therapeutic targets, iii) providing recommendations for the preclinical assessment of neuroprotective agents, and iv) reporting the results of the preclinical assessment of new neuroprotective therapies.