Moving on from our first decade of environmental science publishing

The tenth anniversary

Last year we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the launch of the Journal of Environmental Monitoring, and we marked this special milestone with a series of special editorials, anniversary reviews, and anniversary lectures. We had much to celebrate about the past ten years, as well as celebrate our increasingly significant position in the field of environmental science publishing and the potential for greater success in the future. This particular milestone represents a coming-of-age for the journal, as our audience has broadened, our citations have increased, our articles and reviews are of ever-increasing quality, and our promise of fast publication times has been met. We are ready for and look forward to the challenges of the next ten years with a very positive outlook!

Our special contributions in 2008 demonstrate the success and draw of JEM as we were able to include Editorials, Perspectives and Critical Reviews from a wide variety of esteemed policy leaders and preeminent scientists. For example, Eduardo de Mulder, Director of the UN International Year of Planet Earth Secretariat,¹ and Robert T. Watson, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs² and Richard Pike, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry.³ These Editorials offered a broad view of our world and its environmental challenges, as well as opportunities and potential solutions for the future.

The tenth year issues also featured a number of critical reviews dealing with some of our most pressing global environmental challenges. Subjects that were covered included: climate change impacts on coral reef condition;⁴ natural disasters and their impacts on the health of communities;⁵ dryland agricultural regions, and implications for sustainable management;⁶ food safety and public health;⁷ and laboratory applications of mineral dust aerosols and their impacts on global climate.⁸ The final issue contained a timely review of naturally occurring asbestos and implications for health risk.⁹

These 10th anniversary articles and reviews have been very successful for JEM, thus we intend to continue publishing reviews and papers that deal with major issues of public and scientific concern under the title of ‘ JEM Spotlight Articles’. Critical reviews addressing such broad issues are welcome and encouraged.

Finally, we celebrated with two Anniversary Lectures, the first given at AIRMON 2008, (held in Geilo, Norway, 27th–31st January, 2008) by Albert Gilmutdinov, Kazan State University, Russia¹⁰ and the second at Dioxin 2008 (Birmingham, UK, 17th–22nd October 2008), given by Kevin Jones, University of Lancaster, UK.¹¹

For full details of all our 10th Anniversary Celebrations please visit www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/em/News/celebrating_10_years.asp.

We are no longer a new publication, but an established high quality international journal of environmental sciences. This maturity is reflected in our publication statistics—we have published reviews and papers from authors residing in 62 countries. We have doubled the number of reviews being published and our submissions continue to grow reflecting the increase in scientific quality. Our impact factor has improved steadily, and our average times to publication remain the fastest in the field at just under four months from receipt.

We look forward to the coming decade, to new achievements and further milestones, and thank you, our readers, authors and reviewers for joining us on this journey.

RSC continues from success to success

Same great ReSourCe—just better!

During 2009, we will release a new version of ReSourCe, our system for online manuscript submission and peer review (www.rsc.org/resource). Already popular with authors and referees, we've listened to your feedback and made further improvements to our service. We're keen to build on your experience of ReSourCe, so if you would you like to help us shape the next release by taking part in beta-testing or by supplying your comments and suggestions please contact mailto:resourcesupport@rsc.org.

More papers and greater impact

As we look forward to 2009, RSC Publishing is working with more authors than ever before—2008 saw the number of authors published in RSC Journals increase by 30%. Meanwhile titles from across the collection recorded impressive rises in impact factors.

JEM's impact factor has improved by 20% in the last year and its immediacy index of 0.76 confirms that the journal is publishing the latest, most topical work. The Immediacy Index is a statistic that reflects how quickly papers within a particular journal are cited. It is calculated by taking the number of articles cited in 2007 divided by the number of articles published in 2007. The latest immediacy index for JEM is higher than many other leading journals in the sector.

RSC Publishing is committed to providing a world-class publishing service and global visibility to its authors and with the number of citations increasing, immediacy and impact factors rising it is clear to see that JEM and RSC Publishing are recognised by researchers throughout the world as a key resource to publish and read the very best research.

Your RSC subscriptions and free content

We know that it can be difficult to keep track of online resources that are available to you. So, we've introduced a special web page to help you to find out exactly what RSC content you can access. This new page is called Your RSC Subscriptions (www.rsc.org/Publishing/your_access.asp) and it lists all products for which your organisation has a current subscription, plus other content which may be available to you, such as the RSC Journals Archive and the RSC eBook collection.

You can also find out about RSC content that is available free—including research articles that are free for a limited time, news articles in magazines, and free chapters from the RSC eBook Collection. Visit www.rsc.org/Publishing/freeRSCcontent.asp.

Food: the RSC theme for 2009

In 2009, the theme for RSC public engagement activities will be food: looking at all aspects of the supply chain from field to fork and eventually to waste disposal and recycling. Planned activities include: the launch of a major reports into securing a sustainable food supply; the publication of a new edition of the ground-breaking book Kitchen Chemistry; lectures and events at the new Chemistry Centre at Burlington House—the world's foremost venue for showcasing chemistry; and Chemistry Week 2009 (7th–15th November), when practising scientists and science teachers will engage in a week-long festival for the chemical sciences. Please get in touch with us (mailto:food@rsc.org) if you would like to be involved.

Energy & Environmental Science

The new RSC journal Energy & Environmental Science, launched in the summer of 2008, has had a tremendously successful start, publishing the most topical research for all aspects of the chemical sciences relating to energy conversion and storage, alternative fuel technologies, and environmental science. Visit the website and read the latest issue of Energy & Environmental Science and register to access all issues for free throughout 2009 at www.rsc.org/ees.

Deborah Swackhamer

Editorial Board Chair, JEM

Harp Minhas

Editor, JEM

Plate1 Deborah Swackhamer.

References

1. E. de Mulder, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 164–165.
2. R. T. Watson, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 288–290.
3. R. Pike, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 17.
4. J. M. Lough, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 21–29.
5. A. Cook, J. Watson, P. van Buynder, A. Robertson and P. Weinstein, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 167–175.
6. R. J. Thomas, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 595–603.
7. M. Brustad, T. M. Sandanger, E. Nieboer and E. Lund, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 422–427.
8. C. D. Hatch and V. H. Grassian, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 919–934.
9. M. Harper, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 1394–1408.
10. A. Gilmutdinov and Ilya Zivilskii, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 1417–1425.
11. M. Sharpe, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 1259–1260.

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