Happy New Year from the Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences Editors
Editorial Board and Ownership Board
Following Janet Bornman's move to New Zealand in 2006, Rex Tyrrell (Director of Research at the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University of Bath) took over as photobiology section Editor-in-Chief in January 2007 and Santi Nonell continued as Deputy-Editor-in-Chief following his invaluable help with the transition. This year we welcome four new editorial board members: Vivienne Reeve, University of Sydney, Australia; Brian Diffey, University of Newcastle, UK; Kristian Berg, Norwegian Radium Hospital, Norway; and Frank Quina, University of São Paolo, Brazil. Kristian replaces Jacques Piette who joins the Ownership Board of the Journal. Jacques' enormous contribution as Associate Editor in the burgeoning area of photodynamic therapy has been much appreciated. Frank replaces Alexander Chibisov, whom we would like to thank for his service as Associate Editor to the Journal.Special thanks are due to all of our Associate Editors who have given valuable time and energy to maintaining and enhancing the high scientific standard of the Journal, and to the referees without whom the entire scientific editorial process would grind to a halt.
We also extend our heartfelt appreciation to Giulio Jori who leaves the Ownership Board after many years of service as a pioneer of the photobiology section of the Journal, as past Editor-in-Chief and most recently as a very active and committed Chair of the Journal's ownership board. We welcome Sandra Monti, previously vice-Chair, as Chair of the Ownership Board. We also welcome the new presidents of the EPA and ESP, Dimitra Markovitsi and Kristian Berg, respectively, to the Ownership board. Dimitra replaces David Phillips, who we thank for his continuous efforts to strengthen the position of the Journal. Kristian replaces Francesco Lenci who retires from the Ownership Board and we would also like to thank him for his help in shaping the Journal.
Cutting-edge content
The 2006 impact factors released by ISI® showed another increase for Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences to 2.416, putting the Journal in a strong position in the following ISI categories: biophysics (32 out of 66 journals, in the 2nd quartile); chemistry, physical (36 out of 108 journals, in the 2nd quartile); biochemistry and molecular biology (135 out of 262 journals, in the 3rd quartile). Since the first impact factor for Photochemcial & Photobiological Sciences in 2003 (1.359) the Journal has shown growth year-on-year.Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences has also been attracting new authors. In 2007 (Jan–Nov), compared to the same period in 2006, we experienced a 29% increase in the number of submissions to the Journal. Last year we conducted a publication times comparison between Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences and the Journal's closest competitors and we are pleased to report that Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences came out as the fastest publication with an average time of 95 days from receipt of a manuscript to online publication.
Themed issues attract considerable attention and serve to give a broad picture of the state-of-the-art photochemical and photobiological sciences in specific areas. The UNEP issue published in March 2007 was documentation of the assessment prepared by the Environmental Effects Assessment Panel for Parties to the Montreal Protocol, which paid particular attention to the interactions between ozone depletion and climate change and their consequences for environmental and health issues. The panel that prepared this timely and comprehensive report was co-chaired by Jan van der Leun, Janet Bornman and Xiaoyan Tang and the report itself has stimulated much discussion including forum articles published in the August 2007 issue of the Journal. A follow up progress report is published in this issue. A second large photobiology themed issue dedicated to photodynamic therapy was published in December 2007. This themed issue, painstakingly prepared by Kristian Berg and Qian Peng (also from the Norwegian Radium Hospital) as guest editors was based on work presented at the 11th World Congress of the International Photobiology Association which met in Shanghai, China in March 2007. Two further themed issues in 2007 were devoted to photoscience leaders upon their reaching the emeritus status in their scientific career. With the great help of Sandra Monti a plethora of photoscientists contributed to an issue on Smart Photoactive Supermolecules dedicated to Professor Vincenzo Balzani (April 2007 issue). With Tony Parker, Anita Jones and Andrew Beeby guest editing an issue in honour of David Phillips, highlighting the broad scope of photosciences in which former students or associates of David are now involved (September 2007 issue).
A series of perspectives on time-resolved methods in biophysics (guest edited by Thomas Gensch and Cristiano Viappiani) was continued in 2007 with the publication of an article on fluorescence lifetime correlation spectroscopy by Ingo Gregor and Jörg Enderlein (January 2007 issue). Special efforts are made to encourage excellent contributions from the many diverse areas of photochemistry and photobiology, two recent examples published in the July 2007 issue include a perspective on fungal photoreceptors by Luis Corrachano, and a perspective from Dimitra Markovitsi on excited states and energy transfer among DNA bases in double helices. Further consolidating this policy, a substantial part of an issue of the Journal early this year, with Vadim Viviani (Brazil) as guest editor, will be dedicated to several perspectives and original articles in the area of bioluminescence.
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, where judges described RSC Prospect articles as “delightfully simple to use … 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 RSC Prospect 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 Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences 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 be 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. Subscribers to Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences will have free online access to Energy & Environmental Science from launch. Visit the website for the latest news: www.rsc.org/ees‘Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences 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 which span 40 years of research and opinion.The RSC eBook Collection is testament to 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 from all four corners of the globe are taking advantage of the free first chapter downloads and from January 2008, Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences will regularly highlight a book specifically for our readers through our ‘Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences book of choice’ scheme. More information is available on the Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences website.
If you would like to buy a print copy of the ‘Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences 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, we would like to thank you for your continued support of Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences and wish you a successful 2008.F. C. De Schryver
Editor-in-Chief, photochemistry
Rex Tyrrell
Editor-in-Chief, photobiology
Sarah Ruthven
Editor, RSC
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