Happy New Year from NPR

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Abstract

Welcome to a new year from Natural Product Reports as we celebrate 25 years of successful publishing.

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The past year has been a bumper one for Natural Product Reports in all senses. Recent issues have contained a larger than usual number of articles whilst maintaining high quality, we have published two issues focussed on specific topics, and the impact factor has soared to a heady 8.9. NPR readers will be pleased to hear that additional themed issues are planned on hot topics for the coming months and years, building on our success.

You can also expect more from NPR in the next few years as there are a large number of articles in the pipeline from our Commissioning Editors, so all readers can expect to see bumper issues throughout this year. We hope that you will enjoy our celebratory 25th year of publishing.

Focus of attention

Thanks go to Emma Raven, commissioning editor for bioinorganic chemistry, who, together with guest editor Paul Ortiz de Montellano, edited and collated the special issue on the chemistry and biochemistry of heme proteins, which has been extremely well received by the bioinorganic chemistry community. The first themed issue, on vitamins and cofactors, was guest-edited by Alison Smith and Finian Leeper, and will prove to be of much interest to many of our readers.

Last year saw growth in the number of synthetic articles, with the assistance of our synthetic commissioning editors, Andy Phillips and Andreas Kirschning, covering areas from inositols to marine toxins. These synthetic articles have a unique remit, to cover natural product synthesis where this has been used to correct structure and elucidate biological function, as well as focusing on overall synthetic strategy. We hope these articles will be of benefit to our current readers and will be appreciated by the synthetic community. To consolidate this effort, there will be a synthesis-focussed issue in early 2008.

Change on the editorial board

Last year saw the retirement of Professor Wilhelm Boland from the editorial board, whose contributions in the area of chemical ecology have been invaluable.

For 2008 we are very pleased to welcome three new members to the editorial board. Professor Peter Houghton, King’s College London, UK, will deal with work primarily in the area of plant pharmacognosy and phytotherapy. In broadening the scope of the journal, Professor Harold Kohn, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US, joins us and takes responsibility for the coverage of pharmacology, and additional coverage of biosynthesis and chemical ecology will be the brief of Professor Jörn Piel, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany. May we take this opportunity to warmly welcome the new commissioning editors to the editorial board; we look forward to working with you all.

Natural Product Reports Lecture Award

Congratulations to Professor R. X. Tan, Nanjing University, China, who was the recipient of the 2007 NPR lecture award. Professor Tan, who is on the advisory editorial board, edited the issue on Natural products chemistry in China in 2006, and gave his award lecture ‘Metabolites of marine and terrestrial symbionts’ at the 5th European Conference on Marine Natural Products in Ischia, Italy, in September 2007, which was attended by around 200 participants. Nominations for the 2008 NPR Lecture Award are now closed and the results will be announced early this year.

Award-winning technology and enhanced HTML articles

Launched in February 2007, RSC Project Prospect has had an exceptional first year. Bringing science alive via enhanced HTML articles in RSC journals, the project delivers: hyperlinked compound information (including downloadable structures) in text; links to IUPAC Gold Book terms; ontology terms linked to definitions and related articles; plus RSS feeds that include structured subject and compound information, enabling at-a-glance identification of relevant articles. As the only publisher able to offer these enhancements, we were delighted to be awarded the 2007 ALPSP/Charlesworth Award for Publishing Innovation, the judges describing RSC Prospect articles as ‘delightfully simple to use … the benefits to authors and readers are immediately obvious.’ Around 1400 articles have now been published with enhanced HTML—to see for yourself, look out for the ‘Prospect View’ icon on our website. Further developments to the project will be announced in 2008. Many of you have already told us how impressed you are with the project—www.projectprospect.org has examples of enhanced articles, feedback from the scientific community, plus the latest news.

Following feedback from journal readers, a number of changes have been introduced across all RSC Journals. The Natural Product Reports homepage now contains the contents list for the current issue, delivering the content you want to see as soon as you arrive at the site. Graphical abstracts are included as standard, allowing you to browse content much more conveniently. A more prominent and easy-to-use search box also makes finding published research much more intuitive. Advance Articles will soon also available in pdf format.

For authors, the RSC Journal templates have been revised and updated to assist submission in a format similar to the journal layout. The guidelines for the use of colour in RSC Journals will be relaxed during 2008, and the decision on the free use of colour will be based on whether the use of colour enhances the scientific understanding of the figure (the old policy required the colour to be essential). In addition, for the online version of the journals, colour will be introduced at no cost in both the pdf and html versions.

Energy & Environmental Science

RSC Publishing will be launching a new journal in summer 2008. Energy & Environmental Science will cover all aspects of the chemical sciences relating to energy conversion and storage and environmental science. Visit the website for the latest news: www.rsc.org/ees.

Molecular BioSystems spins out

It’s official: Molecular BioSystems has separated from its host journal, Chemical Communications, and is now a fully fledged solo publication. Its availability since launch to readers of Chemical Communications and the online hosts, Organic & Bimolecular Chemistry, Lab on a Chip, The Analyst and Analytical Abstracts, has ensured that Molecular BioSystems received a large and interdisciplinary audience from the outset. Natural Product Reports readers who wish to read Molecular BioSystems can recommend the journal to their librarian. Fill in the online recommendation form at www.rsc.org/libraryrecommendation.

‘Natural Product Reports book of choice’ scheme

Launched in Spring 2007, the RSC eBook Collection offers scientists across the globe online access to a prestigious and wide-ranging portfolio of chemical science books that span 40 years of research and opinion.

The RSC eBook Collection is testament to the RSC’s publishing innovation as well as the high quality of the content contained in our books. With further technical developments and new 2008 content being uploaded throughout the year, the RSC eBook Collection is set to become a key resource. To search the Collection or for further information visit www.rsc.org/ebooks.

Scientists worldwide are taking advantage of the free first chapter downloads, and from January 2008 Natural Product Reports will regularly highlight a book specifically for our readers through our ‘Natural Product Reports book of choice’ scheme. More information is available on the Natural Product Reports website.

25% Book discount for RSC authors, editors and referees

If you would like to buy a print copy of the ‘Natural Product Reports book of choice’ or other titles from the RSC, and you are an RSC author, editor or referee, you can enjoy a special 25% discount on your book purchase. You can redeem this offer online through the RSC Online Shop. To find out how to claim your exclusive discount, visit www.rsc.org/shop.

And finally…

Everyone involved in the commissioning and production of NPR are committed to ensuring that NPR remains a high-quality journal that serves the international community well. We are always happy to receive feedback from authors and readers alike, especially if it helps us to further improve the services we offer. If you have any feedback please contact the editorial office at npr@rsc.org.

To all our readers and authors, on behalf of the Natural Product Reports editorial board and the Royal Society of Chemistry, we wish you a happy and successful 2008.

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