NJC at the heart of modern chemistry

Dear authors and readers of NJC,

As you all know, chemistry has a tremendous impact on our modern world preoccupied with its future. Indeed, chemistry covers vast and important domains for our societies such as energy, environment, biology and medicine, agribusiness and materials. Through its multiple facets and numerous interfaces with other disciplines, chemistry is the quintessential multidisciplinary science.

As I start the fourth year of my mandate as Editor-in-Chief of NJC, I am still very enthusiastic about the evolution of the journal. Today, NJC represents an excellent editorial forum spanning the range from molecular to supramolecular chemistry to hybrid networks, well-crystallized to amorphous materials, soft to hard matter, experimental work to modelling. The quality and diversity of the submitted work, conjugated with the efforts and professionalism of the RSC, the Montpellier editorial office and our board members, has positioned NJC at the heart of modern chemistry. As a general chemistry journal, NJC promotes all aspects of this science, exposing the richness of its various specialities and subfields.

This year, we will enlarge the editorial scope of NJC by introducing Perspective articles. To begin this initiative, we have invited young award-winning scientists from all over the world to give us their perspective on the field of chemistry they are pushing forward, describing their own results and ideas and setting these in the context of the work of others. We are very pleased that the first of these Perspectives, from Christophe Coperet on the design of metathesis catalysts, appears in this issue. Christophe was the winner of the Bronze Medal of the CNRS in 2001.

Secondly, we are inviting pairs of collaborating scientist from complementary disciplines to each give their own perspective on their common field of investigation. It has been amply demonstrated that research at the interfaces between specialities and disciplines always opens new frontiers for creativity and breakthroughs but suffers from language-related misunderstandings and differences in scientific perception strongly anchored in the collective background of a given scientific population (see George Gokel’s recent Opinion article: Some thoughts on chemistry and biology¹). These Interfaces have the goal of reducing this “dialogue of the deaf” and will help to make the interactions between specialists in different fields more efficient.

The high scientific standards that underpin our standing in the international community are under the scrutiny of the Editorial Boards and Associate Editors, one of whom, Professor Robert Crabtree (Yale University), has reached the end of his term. I would personally like to express my thanks and gratitude to Bob for the great job he has done as an Associate Editor. He always gave freely of his time and creativity to support and improve NJC. I would like to address a warm welcome to Professor George Gokel (at the Medical School of Washington University at St Louis, MO) who is an expert in the field of biomembrane chemistry and who has accepted the torch passed on by Bob. He will be looking to increase submissions in organic, bioorganic and supramolecular chemistry in the US.

Professor Pierre Dixneuf, Consulting Editor, is also gratefully acknowledged for the strong input and support he has always given to NJC. Pierre will be replaced by Odile Eisenstein, who will continue to help (as she is always doing) to promote and improve NJC. This month is also the time for the renewal of the Boards. Many thanks to those on the 2001–2003 Board who are leaving us (John Bradley, Janine Cossy, Miguel Julve and Andrew Holmes) for their valuable assistance during these past 3 years.

One measure of a successful journal is its ability to attract an increasing number of high quality papers (see the editorial by the managing editors in the next issue). Despite the increase in the number of manuscript submissions, we have managed to maintain a relatively rapid publication schedule. Our ability to do this depends directly on the dedicated effort of our reviewers and authors who continue to set the standards for high quality and short turnaround time.

Moreover, we continue to welcome input about the possibilities offered by the field of chemistry in all its guises. Tell us about areas of special interest to you and especially those that you feel have received inadequate coverage, for example, we would like to see more papers in chemical biology. Tell us who you would like to see writing Perspectives for NJC (perhaps you yourself?) and which topics you would like to see covered, particularly where the research is of a multidisciplinary nature. In particular we would like to hear your opinions; we have published six fascinating Opinion articles in 2003, on topics as diverse as non-rigid diastereomers² and the Science Citation Index.³ We are convinced that many more of you have interesting and provocative opinions that should be heard—please take this opportunity to share them with the chemical science community!

We look forward to a continuing close interaction and hope that you will use our email addresses (clems@ccr.jussieu.fr, njc@univ-montp2.fr, njc@rsc.org) to send us your comments, suggestions and constructive criticism.

Best wishes for a happy and successful 2004.

Clément Sanchez

Editor-in-Chief

References

1. G. W. Gokel, New J. Chem., 2003, 1157–1158.
2. J. W. Faller, J. Parr and A. R. Lavoie, New J. Chem., 2003, 899–901.
3. D. Bissey and V. Viossat, New J. Chem., 2003, 1023–1025.

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