Happy New Year from Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences

Editorial Board changes and appointment of Honorary Editors

There have been a number of changes to the Editorial Board and we would like to take this opportunity to thank those members of the Editorial Board who have left during the last year. Jon Nield, who was very active in promoting the journal, sadly resigned from the Editorial Board at the end of last year, and Yehuda Haas finished his term on the Editorial Board. During 2009 Frank Wilkinson retired from his position as Deputy Editor, photochemistry, and to acknowledge his contribution to the founding of Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences he has been appointed as an Honorary Editor. We were also pleased to appoint Giulio Jori as an Honorary Editor, in recognition of his involvement in launching the journal and his continued support and commitment to Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences. We are pleased to announce that Jakob Wirz has joined the journal as Deputy Editor, photochemistry, bringing to the position many years of experience. We also welcome Professor Choon-Hwan Lee from Pusan to the editorial board, who in addition to becoming an Associate Editor, will represent the affiliated society, the Korean Society of Photoscience, on the Ownership Board for the journal. We are also delighted to welcome a further four editorial board members in growing areas of research: Sixto Malato, in the field of photocatalysis, who kindly guest edited a recent themed issue for the journal; Mark Wainwright, from Liverpool John Moores University, joins the team to handle papers in the area of photodynamic therapy; Yunbao Jiang, from Xiamen University, who works in the area of organic photochemistry and photophysics; and we are pleased that Cristiano Viappani, who is the Editor of the successful series of Perspectives on time-resolved methods in biophysics, has agreed to join the Editorial Board. We welcome all of our new Editorial Board members.

Themed issues

Last year was another successful year for themed issues in the journal. In February we published a themed issue entitled ‘Photosynthesis from molecular perspectives – towards future energy production’ which was guest edited by Suleyman Allakhverdiev and Toshi Nagata, with the collaboration of Associate Editor Jorge Casal. This issue was an opportunity to initiate a forum where biologists and chemists involved in photosynthesis could share the recent results on a variety of topics. The April issue of the journal included papers from the emerging and fascinating field of ‘Microscopy beyond imaging: space resolved photochemistry and photobiology’, which was edited by the Editor-in-Chief for photochemistry and the Deputy Editor for photobiology. We were also pleased to have three guest Editors for the May issue of the journal, Professors Vincenzo Augugliaro, Leonardo Palmisano and Sixto Malato, who brought our readers a collection of papers presented at the 5th European Meeting on Solar Chemistry and Photocatalysis: Environmental Applications (SPEA 5). The July issue was a collection of papers in honour of Esther Oliveros on the occasion of her 60th birthday, kindly guest edited by Marie-Thérèse Maurette and Guillermo Orellana. The last themed issue of the year was published in September on the subject of ‘Environmental effects of UV radiation’. This issue was edited by Ruben Sommaruga, presenting a series of articles that reflected the most recent advances on several specific aspects of environmental UVR in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems.

The Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences themed issues highlight new and exciting research areas, and the themed issues that we have planned for this year will continue this trend. In February we will be publishing a themed issue on synthetic and natural photoswitches and later in the year there will be a themed issue on topical and systemic photoprotection. Full details of all the Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences themed issues can be found at www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/pp/themedissues.asp

Sponsored lecture

Following on from the success of 2008, Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences sponsored a lecture at the XXIV International Conference of Photochemistry in Toledo last July. We were honoured to sponsor the lecture given by Professor Michel Orrit entitled ‘Optical spectroscopy of single molecules and nanoparticles’. We plan to sponsor a lecture this year and further details will be given about this in due course via the journal website.

High impact publishing

Publication of the 2008 impact factors, calculated by Thomson ISI, showed the Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences impact factor to be 2.14. Since the journal received its first impact factor in 2003 it has increased by nearly 60%. We would like to thank all of our authors and reviewers for achieving this significant increase in impact factor.

It is pleasing to note that RSC journals feature in the top 10 rankings (by impact factor and immediacy index) in 6 of the 7 core chemistry categories as listed on ISI, and of the top 100 chemistry journals, ranked by impact factor, 15 are from RSC Publishing.

News from RSC Publishing

New integrated content delivery platform

RSC Publishing is proud to announce the launch of our powerful new content delivery platform that supports multiple content types. Powered by the industry's leading MarkLogic Server, and benefiting from the interactive browsing functionality offered by the RSC's enhanced html mark-up technology, the platform delivers exceptionally fast and precise results. Users can now search 165 years of world-class RSC-hosted content including 20 000 book chapters, 300 000 journal articles and 450 000 database records from a single, simple search. Designed around readers’ preferences (identified from a detailed and ongoing user-interview process), our user-friendly platform offers faster browsing, intelligent searching, consistent user experience irrespective of content type sought, and simpler and more intuitive navigation. We'll be releasing even more exciting functionality later in the year. Please tell us what you think at rscpublishing@rsc.org

ChemSpider

Last year the RSC acquired ChemSpider, the richest single source of structure-based chemistry information freely available online, with fast searching of over 21.5 million chemical structures. Alongside the powerful database, the ChemSpider development team brings well over 40 years of additional cheminformatics experience to the RSC, including a chemistry-centric document mark-up system capable of finding chemical names and converting to chemical structures and linking to online resources. Integration of this technology with the RSC's existing award winning enhanced html mark-up technology, RSC Prospect, will lead to substantial enhancements in semantic enrichment for the chemical sciences. Find out more at www.chemspider.com

Continued e-alert success in 2010

2009 saw the launch of the new RSC journal e-alerts; in 2010 we are hoping to see a continued rise in their popularity. The e-alerts are packed with information and links enabling readers to easily view content as soon as it's published, helping them to stay abreast of journal content. The new e-alert registration system has been designed so readers can manage their own subscriptions, tailoring the information they receive and giving them the freedom to unsubscribe at any point. You can find out more information online: www.rsc.org/alerts

New for 2010: the RSC eBook subject collections

In response to readers’ needs and testament to the innovation of RSC Publishing, we are pleased to announce the launch of new RSC eBook Subject Collections.

The 9 new RSC eBook Subject Collections, including a Tutorial Chemistry Texts and Paperbacks package, deliver the high quality content contained in our books into subject specialist packages. With new content being uploaded throughout the year, the new RSC eBook Subject Collections are set to become another key, premier resource. To find out more, please visit www.rsc.org/ebooks

Chemical Science

This new flagship journal will launch in mid-2010, and will publish findings of exceptional significance from across all the chemical sciences. Editor-in-Chief Professor David MacMillan of Princeton leads a dynamic international team of Associate Editors responsible for the scientific development of the journal. Free institutional online access to the entire 2010 and 2011 content of Chemical Science will be automatically provided to all existing customers. Keep in touch with the latest news at www.rsc.org/chemicalscience

…on a related note

The RSC is pleased to announce a significant new global symposia series supporting the launch of the Chemical Science. The International Symposia on Advancing the Chemical Sciences (ISACS) meetings will be held on three continents, over three sequential weeks, focusing on distinct subject areas. More information can be found at www.rsc.org/isacs

New journal

RSC Publishing will launch a new journal this year: MedChemComm will focus on medicinal chemistry research, including new studies related to biologically-active chemical or biochemical entities that can act as pharmacological agents with therapeutic potential or relevance. It will be the official journal of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC), and publish 6 issues this year, increasing to 12 issues in 2011. Visit the website at www.rsc.org/medchemcomm. Free institutional online access is available for all our newest journals. Access, which is managed by institution and IP address, is provided following a simple registration process. Make sure you and your colleagues don't miss out on the free access by filling in the registration form: www.rsc.org/free_access_registration

 

We would like to thank all of our authors and referees for their continued support of Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences and wish you all a successful 2010.

 

Frans De Schryver

Editor-in-Chief, photochemistry

 

Rex Tyrrell

Editor-in-Chief, photobiology

 

Sarah Ruthven

Managing Editor, RSC Publishing

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