Editorial

Martien Cohen Stuart, Editorial Board Chair

Carol Stanier, Managing Editor

Elizabeth Davies, Deputy Editor

---

Another great year for Soft Matter!

2009 has been an exciting year for Soft Matter. The journal turned five and, within this short time, has already established itself as the number one journal for all research in the area of soft matter. With a leading impact factor and immediacy index, the future of Soft Matter certainly looks bright! The past year has seen some exciting changes and new developments, which will keep the journal going from strength to strength.

High impact publishing

Publication of the 2008 impact factors, calculated by ISI, once again brought good news for authors and readers of RSC journals. Nearly all the RSC journals increased in impact factor, immediacy index and article influence, with an impressive average impact factor increase of 8.2%. Overall, the average impact factor for the RSC portfolio now stands at 4.7, equal to that of the ACS collection.

Fig. 1 Comparison of 2008 impact factors for Chemistry journals.

RSC journals feature in the top 10 rankings (by impact factor and immediacy index) in 6 of the 7 core chemistry categories as listed on ISI, and of the top 100 chemistry journals, ranked by impact factor, 15 are from RSC Publishing. 2009 also saw a 75% increase on the number of articles published in RSC journals compared to 2007 (… not only are our impact factors leading the way in the chemical sciences, but there are a wider variety of articles available for you to choose from).

We were delighted that Soft Matter retained its top position in the ranking of soft matter journals in the 2008 impact factors and immediacy indices. This, coupled with the journal's fast times to publication and attractive mix of Reviews, Highlights, Emerging Areas, Communications and Full papers, reinforces the journal as the top choice for soft matter research.

Fig. 2 2008 impact factors for Soft Matter and related journals (released June 2009).

Fig. 3 2008 immediacy indices for Soft Matter and related journals (released June 2009).

Highlights from Soft Matter in 2009

In April, Martien Cohen Stuart became Chair of the Editorial Board. Martien is positive about the future of the journal. ‘Concerning the future, I think it looks bright, we aim to get even more high-impact authors on board!’ he says. In addition to the new Chair, we welcomed Anna Balazs, Alejandro Rey, Lennart Piculell and Jan Vermant to the Editorial Board in June. You can read their profiles later in this issue.

The first Soft Matter award was presented to Emanuela Zaccarelli from the University of La Sapienza, Rome. She was selected from a wealth of nominations by the Editorial Board as a young scientist who has produced significant work that has advanced the field of soft matter. Professor Christos Likos, an Advisory Board member, presented the award to Dr Zaccarelli during the CECAM Workshops in Lausanne on 15th July. Don't forget to nominate your colleagues for their chance to win the 2010 award. Simply send in a CV and nomination letter to the Editorial Office now.

Fig. 4 Christos Likos presents the 2009 Soft Matter award to Emanuela Zaccarelli.

The Soft Matter symposium at the 42nd IUPAC Congress in Glasgow in August was a fantastic event. An impressive line-up of speakers, including invited lectures by Dennis Discher, Dimitris Vlassopoulos, Karen Wooley and Bing Xu, made the symposium a great success. We would like to thank all those who participated in the symposium, by providing oral or poster submissions, or by being amongst the many attendees. We hope to see you at conferences throughout 2010. Keep an eye on the journal’s web site to find out where we will be!

Some excellent themed issues have been published in 2009, from Food Science to Membrane Biophysics. The interdisciplinary nature of Soft Matter was perfectly showcased in the themed issue on Self-Assembly, which featured studies on a wide variety of matter, from crystals to gels to cells. The Emerging Investigators issue highlighted some of today's outstanding young soft matter scientists, and in doing so captured newly emerging high-impact areas of fundamental soft matter research. We would like to thank all guest editors, authors and readers for making these themed issues such a success!

Fig. 5 Covers of Soft Matter's 2009 themed issues.

As part of the birthday celebrations, the Top 5 series was published every month. From the most cited articles to the most published authors, five articles a month were made free to all. These were included in Soft Matters, the monthly newsletter, keeping you up to date with developments from Soft Matter and RSC Publishing. You can sign up to receive this newsletter at www.rsc.org/alerts.

Soft Matter looking forward

2010 promises to be as exciting as the past year for Soft Matter. Don't forget to look out for our upcoming themed issue on Emerging Themes in Active Materials, with guest editors Anna Balazs and Julia Yeomans.

Finally, we would like to invite you to share any comments with us by writing to mailto:softmatter@rsc.org. We would like to thank you—our authors, readers and referees—for all your support in the continued success of Soft Matter. We hope to hear from you in 2010!

More news from RSC Publishing

Journals of material importance

Our materials portfolio has expanded significantly over the last year with the addition of two new journal titles.

Polymer Chemistry, a new journal encompassing all aspects of synthetic and biological macromolecules and related emerging areas, will provide a showcase for the ongoing efforts driving polymer chemistry, highlighting the creativity of the field and previously inaccessible applications. The first articles are now freely available online at www.rsc.org/polymers in advance of issue 1, due for publication early in 2010.

Nanoscale, a new journal encompassing experimental and theoretical work across the breadth of nanoscience and nanotechnology, met with resounding success when it published its first articles in August 2009. Now in its second volume, the journal, which is a collaborative venture between RSC Publishing and the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST) in Beijing, China, continues to showcase important and high quality nano-research, providing a forum that is essential reading for all scientific communities working at the nanoscale. www.rsc.org/nanoscale

Chemical Science

This new flagship journal will launch in mid-2010, and will publish findings of exceptional significance from across all the chemical sciences. Editor-in-Chief Professor David MacMillan of Princeton leads a dynamic international team of Associate Editors responsible for the scientific development of the journal. Free institutional online access to the entire 2010 and 2011 content of Chemical Science will be automatically provided to all existing customers.

Keep in touch with the latest news at www.rsc.org/chemicalscience.

…on a related note

RSC is pleased to announce a significant new global symposia series supporting the launch of Chemical Science. The International Symposia on Advancing the Chemical Sciences (ISACS) meetings will be held on three continents, over three sequential weeks, focusing on distinct subject areas. More information can be found at www.rsc.org/isacs.

Free access available for all new RSC journals

Free institutional online access is available for all our newest journals. Access, which is managed by institution and IP address, is provided following a simple registration process. Make sure you and your colleagues don't miss out on the free access by filling in the registration form:

www.rsc.org/free_access_registration.

RSC Open Science offers the option of paying a fee in exchange for making your accepted article openly available to all via the web and is available to authors of Soft Matter as well as all RSC journals. This system operates in parallel with the normal publication route (subscription), which remains free to authors. Revenues gained from RSC Publishing are used to support the RSC's learned and professional activities, to advance the chemical sciences. More information about RSC activities can be found at http://www.rsc.org.

Continued e-alert success in 2010

2009 saw the launch of the new RSC journal e-alerts; in 2010 we are hoping to see a continued rise in their popularity. The e-alerts are packed with information and links enabling readers to easily view content as soon as it's published, helping them to stay abreast of journal content. The new e-alert registration system has been designed so readers can manage their own subscriptions, tailoring the information they receive and giving them the freedom to unsubscribe at any point. You can find out more information online: www.rsc.org/alerts.

New for 2010: the RSC eBook subject collections

In response to readers needs and testament to the innovation of RSC Publishing, we are pleased to announce the launch of new RSC eBook Subject Collections.

The 9 new RSC eBook Subject Collections, including a Tutorial Chemistry Texts and Paperbacks package, deliver the high quality content contained in our books into subject specialist packages. With new content being uploaded throughout the year, the new RSC eBook Subject Collections are set to become another key, premier resource. To find out more, please visit www.rsc.org/ebooks.

New integrated content delivery platform

RSC Publishing is proud to announce the launch of our powerful new content delivery platform that supports multiple content types. Powered by the industry's leading MarkLogic Server, and benefiting from the interactive browsing functionality offered by RSC's enhanced html mark-up technology, the platform delivers exceptionally fast and precise results. Users can now search 165 years of world-class RSC-hosted content including 20 000 book chapters, 300 000 journal articles and 450 000 database records from a single, simple search. Designed around readers' preferences (identified from a detailed and ongoing user-interview process), our user-friendly platform offers faster browsing, intelligent searching, consistent user experience irrespective of content type sought, and simpler more intuitive navigation. We'll be releasing even more exciting functionality later in the year. Please tell us what you think at mailto:rscpublishing@rsc.org.

ChemSpider

Last year RSC acquired ChemSpider, the richest single source of structure based chemistry information freely available online, with fast searching of over 21.5 million chemical structures. Alongside the powerful database, the ChemSpider development team brings well over 40 years of additional cheminformatics experience to the RSC, including a chemistry centric document mark-up system capable of finding chemical names and converting to chemical structures and linking to online resources. Integration of this technology with RSC's existing award winning enhanced html mark-up technology, RSC Prospect, will lead to substantial enhancements in semantic enrichment for the chemical sciences. Find out more at www.chemspider.com.

---