Exciting times for PCCP!

Happy New Year to all our readers! On behalf of the PCCP Editorial Board and PCCP Owner Societies, we welcome you to the first issue of 2007.

Weekly publication

In response to the considerable growth in high-quality submissions that PCCP has enjoyed, the journal moved to weekly publication at the beginning of 2006. As detailed in our January 2006 Editorial (DOI: 10.1039/b516769h), it was the support of our international authors, readers and referees that enabled us to make such a move, and we’re now delighted to report that the move to weekly publication has been most successful. With this Editorial we would like to take the opportunity to reflect on some of the changes associated with weekly publication that have further improved the service we offer to the community, as well as highlighting some of the exciting developments you can expect in PCCP over the coming year.

Publishing in the quickest time

PCCP is very conscious of the great importance that many authors attach to the speedy publication of their work. We are well known for being the quickest physical chemistry journal, but we do not want to rest on our laurels. The move to weekly publication has been accompanied by a decrease in our times to publication; notably the median time from acceptance to publication in a citable form on the web is currently an incredible 13 days for full papers—a record low. As ever, our low times to publication are achieved without compromising on the peer-review process: all papers published in PCCP continue to receive at least two reports from our international panel of expert referees. Moreover, the Editorial Board has recently decided to further tighten the acceptance criteria and refereeing procedure to ensure that only the best and most exciting work in the fields of physical chemistry and chemical physics is published.

Attractive design

The design of PCCP was improved from the start of 2006, to make every article even easier to read. Our attractive and striking covers (see Fig. 1) continue to make an impression, with the ability to have artwork featured on the cover or inside cover being well received by authors and readers alike. Showcasing hot science from both PCCP and other RSC Journals in Chemical Science, Chemical Technology and Chemical Biology has also proved very popular: in fact, the free supplements have become so successful that from January 2007, all issues will be eight pages (in print), contain new article types and come complete with a fresh new look for the front page. Supplementary material will also be available online.

Fig. 1 Some of the striking PCCP covers from 2006.

Fig. 2 Professor Edmond Payen receiving his PCCP prize certificate.

Fig. 3 The latest (2005) official Immediacy Indices for general physical chemistry journals.

Fig. 4 The increase in PCCP’s Impact Factor since the launch of the journal.

Themed issues

Publishing twice the number of issues as previously has given much more flexibility for publishing high-quality themed issues whilst maintaining the delicate balance between themed issues and ‘regular’ issues of the journal. In the late summer and autumn of 2006 we published a highly successful series of themed issues on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. Over 50 papers from leading international research groups were published, showcasing the highly multidisciplinary nature of current nanoscience research. PCCP, a truly international journal with a history of publishing the latest and most exciting multidisciplinary research, was therefore a natural home for such a series of special issues. To ease browsing, all of the nanoscience themed issue papers have been collected on a single webpage—http://www.rsc.org/pccpnano. Please do take the time to visit the webpage and read the full range of the research published in the themed series. We are greatly indebted to the Guest Editors, Phil Bartlett, Tim Jones and Paul Mulvaney, for their help with these issues.

Early in 2007 we will be publishing a further exciting high-profile series of themed issues, in the very topical area of Alternative Fuel Technologies. Guest edited by Joachim Maier, Dirk Guldi and Adriano Zecchina, the issues will feature the latest research in a variety of fields, including fuel cells, electrochemical energy conversion, solar energy conversion and hydrogen storage. Please do check our website (http://www.rsc.org/pccp) or sign up to our RSS feeds to keep up-to-date with the latest research.

Weekly publication has also enabled us to publish smaller, highly focussed themed issues in key topical areas. A recent example is the Imaging Probes of Spectroscopy and Dynamics issue (read the Editorial at DOI: 10.1039/b607482k), which was very well received by the community. There are several other exciting PCCP themed issues to look forward to in the coming months, and any further ideas for focussed themed issues are of course very welcome—please do send suggestions to E-mail: pccp@rsc.org.

Feature invited articles

PCCP “Invited Articles” have long been one of the most popular features of the journal. Invited Articles are high profile research articles of interest to a broad spectrum of research workers within the areas of chemical physics and physical chemistry, designed to present an authoritative state-of-the-art account of the selected research field. PCCP’s move to weekly publication was an ideal opportunity to increase the number of Invited Articles published, and we’re pleased to report that in 2006 we published many more Invited Articles than ever before. These have showcased a diverse and hugely exciting range of research fields, from nanoparticles (DOI: 10.1039/b606090k) to ionic liquids (DOI: 10.1039/b600519p), from molecular beams (DOI: 10.1039/b602260j) to non-equilibrium statistical mechanics (DOI: 10.1039/b604284h). You can look forward to many more high-quality Invited Articles in 2007, starting in this issue with an Invited Article on product pair correlation in bimolecular reactions by Kopin Liu (DOI: 10.1039/b614801h), an Invited Article on methanol oxidation with significance for fuel cell development by Héctor Abruña et al. (DOI: 10.1039/b612040g) and a review of electron diffraction from carbon nanotubes by Lu-Chang Qin (DOI: 10.1039/b614121h). If you have any suggestions for future Invited Articles, please do contact the Editorial Office at E-mail: pccp@rsc.org.

PCCP prizes

To celebrate the move to weekly publication, in 2006 PCCP awarded prizes at several conferences for the first time. Lecture prizes were awarded to Dr Sylvain Cristol and Professor Edmond Payen at the 2nd International Congress on Operando Spectroscopy in Toledo (Spain) (Fig. 2), and to Professor Hubert Girault at the International Society of Electrochemistry meeting in September. Four poster prizes were also offered at each of the Gas Kinetics 2006 symposium in France in July and the International Conference on Surface and Colloid Science in China in October. We offer our congratulations to all the PCCP prizewinners, and look forward to seeing their winning research in the journal soon.

We are planning to award further prizes at conferences over the course of this year—further details will be on our website—http://www.rsc.org/pccp—in due course. PCCP Editorial staff continue to attend a number of conferences around the world, to keep in touch with the latest scientific developments and to meet our authors, readers and referees. Please do say ‘hello’ if PCCP is represented at a conference you will be attending.

High impact

In June 2006 we were delighted when newly-released ISI® citation data showed a rise in our Immediacy Index to a record level, which means that for the second consecutive year PCCP has the highest official Immediacy Index of any general physical chemistry journal publishing original research (Fig. 3). The Immediacy Index is a measure of how topical and urgent the papers published by a journal are, and is calculated by dividing the number of citations to articles published in a given year by the number of articles published in that year. We also enjoyed a very big rise of over 20% in our Impact Factor to 2.52: again to its highest ever level, and a continuation of the long-term increase in PCCP’s Impact Factor (Fig. 4). Moreover, the 2005 impact factors, released by ISI® in June 2006, also showed an impressive average increase of over 10% for RSC Journals.

Communications

PCCP’s high Immediacy Index and very low times to publication make it the ideal home for urgent Communications. Communications must report very high quality new work of such importance that merits urgent publication, and are given the highest priority at all stages of the publication process. The number of Communications received by PCCP is currently at a record level, and we very much welcome further submissions of your very best research. Communications can be submitted using the ReSourCe web submissions service (http://www.rsc.org/resource) in the same way as regular articles.

Editorial Board changes

Four Editorial Board members (Professors Fleming, Kleyn, Lubitz and Smit) completed their terms of office at the end of 2006, and we would like to offer our warmest thanks for their substantial contributions to the success of the journal. We are delighted to welcome Professors Daniella Goldfarb, Manfred Martin and David Nesbitt as new members of the Editorial Board; each will bring a wealth of experience from different areas of research. Profiles of the new Board members will appear in subsequent issues. David Nesbitt is joining the Board in the new role of Regional Editor for the Americas, and we look forward to a fruitful collaboration that will promote the journal in this key region. It also gives us pleasure to welcome Ferdi Schüth and Ruth Signorell to our International Advisory Editorial Board, and we extend a sincere welcome to Professor Bill Miller, who joined the PCCP Honorary Board in 2006. Full details of the PCCP Honorary, Editorial and Advisory Boards can be found on our website, http://www.rsc.org/pccp.

Biophysical webpage

Biophysical chemistry is an important and expanding area of PCCP, and with this in mind we have created a biophysical chemistry webpage (http://www.rsc.org/pccpbio), which collects together all recent work published in the journal in this field. Communications, Papers, and Invited Articles are all included; enabling you to discover what the present challenges are and what direction the area may take in the future. Please do take a look.

All papers published in PCCP are included in Index Medicus/MEDLINE, increasing their visibility to the biophysical and biological communities. Indeed, the visibility across all communities of papers published in PCCP has never been stronger: full paper downloads from our website more than doubled in 2006, and are at an all-time high. Each month we list and update the top ten most accessed papers—do have a look at our website (http://www.rsc.org/pccp) for the latest details.

Technological innovation

PCCP has benefited from a number of technological developments in 2006. Introduced last year, RSS feeds, or ‘really simple syndication’, have proved extremely popular with our readers. Subscribers receive alerts as soon as an Advance Article is published in their journal of choice, providing both the graphical abstract and text from a journal’s contents page. You can subscribe via the PCCP homepage.

Subscribers to PCCP will now link from the journal’s contents lists straight through to the HTML view of selected articles, in just one quick step. Here you can download references to citation managers (such as EndNote, Ref Manager, ProCite and BibTex), sign up for RSS feeds, search for citing articles (otherwise known as ‘forward linking’), print the article with just one click and send the article to a friend or colleague.

From 2007, authors publishing in PCCP will see their science “come alive” thanks to an exciting new project pioneered by the RSC. Enhanced HTML will allow chemical and biological compounds mentioned in the text to be identified; by clicking on the compound readers will be able to obtain further information about that compound, including a downloadable structure plus a list of relevant subject areas. The RSC is the first publisher to utilise the International Chemical Identifier (InChI) (a digital equivalent of the IUPAC name for any particular covalent compound where structures are expressed in terms of five layers of information—connectivity, tautomeric, isotopic, stereochemical, and electronic) for a project of this type and scope. The technology will be used to enhance RSS alerts so that future news feeds can include chemical structures and other enhanced information. RSC Publishing intends to evolve this project to match author and reader needs so tell us what you think: we welcome your feedback on this new functionality and will incorporate your ideas to develop the service further. Find out more at http://www.rsc.org/sciencecomealive.

These developments demonstrate the investment in publishing products and services over the past year and 2007 will see us enhancing our products further.

Finally…

We believe that these truly are exciting times for PCCP. We would like to offer our sincere thanks to everyone who has supported the journal over the past years, namely authors, referees and readers alike. Indeed, if you are working in the fields of Physical Chemistry or Chemical Physics PCCP is YOUR journal!

With best wishes for the New Year,

Bert Weckhuysen

Chair, Editorial Board

Philip Earis

Editor

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