Soft Matter– what an impact
Abstract
As Soft Matter celebrates its impressive first impact factor, Katie Gibb, Commissioning Editor and Ullrich Steiner, Chairman of the Board, reflect on the journey so far and look forward to the exciting new developments for Soft Matter and the RSC in 2008.
Since launch in June 2005, Soft Matter has continued to hurtle through the soft matter field, attracting some of the best researchers in the field and all the time gathering speed. So it's not surprising that we've made a quite an impact.
In January 2007 Soft Matter separated from its host journal, Journal of Materials Chemistry, to become a fully fledged solo publication. In issue 3, 2007, we showcased Soft Matter's first theme issue, guest edited by Professor Joachim Spatz (MPI Stuttgart and University of Heidelberg, Germany), on Proteins and Cells at Functional Interfaces.
June then saw the release of our first ISI®impact factor,† which placed Soft Matter at the top of its field with an impressive value of 4.39 (Fig. 1). This metric really reinforces Soft Matter's position as the best journal where biologists, colloid scientists, physicists, polymer scientists, chemical engineers, chemists, and materials scientists can present work for interdisciplinary inspiration.
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| Fig. 1 2006 impact factors for Soft Matter and related journals (released June 2007). | ||
Soft Matter also continues to be ahead of its competitors with the highest immediacy index‡ in the soft matter field; our latest value rising to 1.183 (Fig. 2).
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| Fig. 2 2006 immediacy indices for Soft Matter and related journals (released June 2007). | ||
We've published some fantastic articles over the past 12 months (Table 1) and would like to extend a big thank you to all our authors, readers and referees for their continuing support of the journal. We hope that you will continue to enjoy reading Soft Matter and send us your best papers in soft matter research.
| Top accessed articles from 2007 |
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| Curvature and spatial organization in biological membranes |
| Raghuveer Parthasarathy and Jay T. Groves, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 24 |
| Bioinspired functional block copolymers |
| Hans G. Börner and Helmut Schlaad, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 394 |
| Encapsulation-stucturing of edible oil attenuates acute elevation of blood lipids and insulin in humans |
| Alejandro G. Marangoni, Stefan H. J. Idziak, Cesar Vega, Heidi Batte, Michel Ollivon, Pamela S. Jantzi and James W. E. Rush, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 183 |
| Super-hydrophobic surfaces made from Teflon |
| Pieter van der Wal and Ullrich Steiner, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 426 |
| Soft matters in cell adhesion: rigidity sensing on soft elastic substrates |
| Ulrich Schwarz, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 263 |
| Cellular chemomechanics at interfaces: sensing, integration and response |
| Philippe P. Girard, Elisabetta A. Cavalcanti-Adam, Ralf Kemkemer and Joachim P. Spatz, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 307 |
| A study of pH-responsive microgel dispersions: from fluid-to-gel transitions to mechanical property restoration for load-bearing tissue |
| Jennifer M. Saunders, Tony Tong, Christine L. Le Maitre, Tony J. Freemont and Brian R. Saunders, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 486 |
| Cell-assisted assembly of colloidal crystallites |
| Vamsi K. Kodali, Wouter Roos, Joachim P. Spatz and Jennifer E. Curtis, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 337 |
| Directional adhesion of superhydrophobic butterfly wings |
| Yongmei Zheng, Xuefeng Gao and Lei Jiang, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 178 |
| Conducting polymers – bridging the bionic interface |
| Gordon Wallace and Geoffrey Spinks, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 665 |
Venturing onwards
The Soft Matter editorial office has been constantly busy with exciting developments and plans, and we intend to keep it this way! This year we are introducing Tutorial Reviews to our readership. Tutorial Reviews in Soft Matter are review articles that provide an essential introduction to a particular area of soft matter. They aim to serve as a springboard to further reading and appeal to younger researchers and established researchers seeking new fields to explore.You can read our first Tutorial Review on Water, electricity, and between… On electrowetting and its applications by David Andelman in this issue (Soft Matter, 2008, 4, DOI: b714994h). “A good tutorial review may persuade the non-expert readers to further explore the topic. Our article aims to offer a ‘soft landing’ into a focused and contemporary area of research in soft matter”, explains Andelman.
As with other review-type articles, Tutorial Reviews are generally commissioned on discussion with the Editorial Board, but suggestions for these are welcome and should be sent to the Editorial Office.
Also on the horizon for the first half of this year is a Soft Matter web theme on food science, to be guest edited by Professor Peter Fryer (University of Birmingham, UK). This focused set of articles will cover the fundamental interdisciplinary research into food science on a variety of themes including food biophysics, food colloids and emulsions, and complex food structure. The articles will be collated together on our website (http://www.softmatter.org) in a dedicated online section.
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| Fig. 3 Soft Matter covers from 2007. | ||
Following feedback from journal readers a number of changes have been introduced across all RSC Journals. The Soft Matter 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.
‘Soft Matter 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, Soft Matter will regularly highlight a book specifically for our readers through our ‘Soft Matter book of choice’ scheme. More information is available on the Soft Matter website.
25% book discount
If you would like to buy a print copy of the ‘Soft Matter 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.Award-winning technology
Of course it's not just Soft Matter that's been busy with new developments. 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—http://www.projectprospect.org has examples of enhanced articles, feedback from the scientific community, plus the latest news.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.And all this is only the tip of the iceberg: with many other developments currently in the pipeline, make sure you keep an eye out for our latest news!
Finally we'd like to thank the Editorial Board and Advisory Board for all their support, ideas and encouragement since the journal was launched. We are all looking forward to another exciting year here at Soft Matter.
Commissioning Editor, Soft Matter
Chair, Soft Matter Editorial Board
Footnotes |
| † Impact factors provide an indication of the average number of citations per paper. Produced annually by ISI® they are calculated by dividing the number of citations in a year by the number of citeable articles published in the preceding two years. As Soft Matter was launched in mid-2005, the 2006 impact factor is a partial value. |
| ‡ From 2006 Journal Citation Reports® released June 2007. The journal immediacy index indicates how quickly articles in a journal are cited. For comparing journals specializing in cutting-edge research, the immediacy index can provide a useful perspective. |
| This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2008 |