Journal of Materials Chemistry: Developing to serve the materials chemistry community

In 2011, we will continue to innovate and develop Journal of Materials Chemistry so that it continues to provide the best service to the materials chemistry community. In this, the first Editorial for 2011, we are delighted to announce the appointment of Professor Seth Marder, director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE) at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, as the new Journal of Materials Chemistry Editorial Board Chair. Seth is a strong supporter of the journal, has previously been a member of the journal's Advisory Board, and was recently Guest Editor for the successful themed issue in 2009 on the topic of nonlinear optics.

Fig. 1 Professor Seth Marder.

We thank Professor George Malliaras for all his support and guidance as Editorial Board Chair 2007–2010. George has overseen some significant developments for the journal, including its spectacular growth in both impact factor and size over the last few years. Indeed, in 2010 the journal grew both in size (Fig. 2) publishing more articles in that year than in any other year before and in impact factor (Fig. 3), representing yet another year of sustained growth.

Fig. 2 Growth in number of articles published in Journal of Materials Chemistry.

Fig. 3 Growth in impact factor for Journal of Materials Chemistry.

2010 saw a number of online developments for the journal, introduced to improve the customer service that the journal offers its authors and readers. Early in 2010, the journal moved to the RSC's new online manuscript submission system. This online system is more user friendly, and helps to streamline the submission process, making it even easier and straightforward to submit your best manuscripts to the journal. If you have not done so already, try out our new submissions service: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jm. During the last quarter of 2010, we introduced PDF versions of Advance Articles, presenting the first online version of an article in a convenient, printable format. Finally, we launched a Journal of Materials Chemistry blog, which is where you can read about the latest hot articles published in the journal, the most accessed articles, and other community news. To keep up to date, check the blog regularly, or sign up to the blog's RSS feed (https://blogs.rsc.org/jm).

Starting the year with our ‘emerging investigators’ themed issue, we published a number of topical, high impact themed issues in 2010, covering a wide range of topics: Interface engineering of organic and molecular electronics, Actively moving polymers, Water treatment, Proton transport for fuel cells, Tissue engineering, Advanced hybrid materials and Modelling of materials. Many thanks are due to the Guest Editors (see Table 1), without whose help and advice these themed issues would not have been possible.

Table 1 2010 Themed issues

Themed Issue	Guest Editor(s)
Emerging investigators	Professor George Malliaras
Interface engineering of organic electronics	Professor Alex Jen (University of Washington, USA)
Actively moving polymers	Professor Andreas Lendlein (GKSS-Forschungszentrum Geesthacht GmbH, Germany)
Advanced materials in water treatment	Professor Dongyuan Zhao (Fudan University, China), Professor Mietek Jaroniec (Kent State University) and Professor Benjamin Hsiao (State University of New York at Stony Brook)
Proton transport for fuel cells	Professor Sossina Haile (California Insitute of Technology, USA) and Professor Peter Pintauro (Vanderbilt University, USA)
Emerging materials for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine	Professor Molly Stevens (Imperial College, London, UK) and Professor Ali Khademhosseini (Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology, USA)
Advanced hybrid materials	Professor Andreas Taubert (University of Potsdam and Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany) and Professor Pierre Rabu (Institut de Physique et Chimie des Materiaux de Strasbourg, France)
Modelling of materials	Professor Mark Wilson and Professor Julian Gale (both University of Oxford, UK)

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2010 also saw the publication of Journal of Materials Chemistry's 20th volume. We celebrated this with articles by current and past Editorial and Advisory Board members, as well as a number of other activities. To see the 20 most prolific authors in Journal of Materials Chemistry, the 20 most cited papers, the 20 most recent themed issues and the 20 most popular Journal of Materials Chemistry covers, as chosen by the Editorial Office and available to available to download as desktop images, go to our blog: http://blogs.rsc.org/jm/category/20th-anniversary/.

We were delighted to present the inaugural Journal of Materials Chemistry Editorial Board Lectureship in 2010. This Lectureship recognises a significant contribution to the materials chemistry field by a younger scientist. We received many high quality nominations and the recipient, Professor Dan Luo (Cornell University, USA), was chosen by the Editorial Board for his research in developing new materials for sensing, imaging and biotechnology. Nominations are now open for the 2011 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship—see our blog for the nomination criteria and instructions, or email the Editorial Office (materials-rsc@rsc.org).

Looking forward to 2011, we welcome three new members to the Editorial Board: Professor Stefan Kaskel (Technische Universität Dresden, Germany), Professor Peter Skabara (University of Strathclyde, UK) and Professor Linda Nazar (University of Waterloo, Canada), and we thank Professor Tomiki Ikeda and Professor Martin Janssen whose terms of office as members of the Editorial Board came to an end at the end of 2010.

We will also continue to publish high quality themed issues in 2011. Look out for our issue dedicated to Professor Fred Wudl in celebration of his 70th birthday, and other issues on such diverse topics as graphene, mechanoresponsive materials, lithium batteries and chemical transformations of nanoparticles.

We welcome your ideas, suggestions and comments to help us to develop the journal further to ensure that it continues to serve the community in the best way it can (materials-rsc@rsc.org).We wish all our readers and authors a successful 2011!

Dr Jamie Humphrey, Editor

Dr Liz Davies, Deputy Editor

RSC publishing update

Quality and growth continues

It's quality that really matters at RSC Publishing. And the 2009 Journal Citation Reports® proved that our quality is better than ever as our average impact factor (IF) rose from 4.9 to 5.4. It's an impressive figure, especially when compared with the average for a chemistry journal of 2.4. But we don't rely on just one or two titles to boost our average. It's our entire collection that counts: of the top 20 journals in the multidisciplinary chemistry category, 25% are from RSC Publishing; and 90% of our titles have an IF over 3.

Our list of titles continues to grow: Food & Function and Catalysis Science & Technology are the latest titles to join our expanding portfolio. Plus, the number of articles we've published has increased by 74% in the last 2 years alone. We remain committed to providing a world-class publishing service to our authors, and delivering cutting-edge chemical science to readers throughout the world. The IF and article growth figures provide a clear indication that more researchers than ever before are recognising journals from the RSC as a key resource to access the very best research.

2011 Books

With steady front-list growth and cutting-edge content, delivering excellence and authority, the RSC is one of the world's leading chemical science print and online book publishers. Nearly 1000 eBooks equating to one third of a million pages, the RSC eBook Collection delivers outstanding online research and opinion in a multitude of areas of the chemical sciences. Nine new RSC eBook Subject Collections offer additional flexibility. With over 90 new print titles planned for 2011, including: second editions of seminal texts; and new RSC Polymer Chemistry and RSC Metallobiology series launching, our contribution to chemistry collections worldwide is diverse, topical and high impact. Expect another first class collection of best selling chemical science titles in 2011 (www.rsc.org/books).

New RSC publishing platform

Access one million journal articles and book chapters in one simple integrated search. The new RSC Publishing Platform has been developed in consultation with the international scientific and librarian community. Together we have identified the best and most valued interface and features that connect you with the highest quality scientific research. With one single search box, easily access our books, journals and databases for students, academics, researchers, scientists and professionals (www.rsc.org/platform).

Free online access

Free online access is available to all our newest journals, and more–all you need to do is register for an RSC Publishing personal account. Then, when you are logged in, you will be able to access all our free content. Currently this includes:

• All content of our newest journals for the first 2 volumes

• Any articles that are part of a special free access promotion (e.g. ‘hot’ papers, web theme issues, etc.)

• All journal content published more than two years ago (dating back to 1997)

• A sample chapter from each book in the RSC eBook Collection

With your username and password you can access the free content any time, any place—all you need is internet access. Register at www.rsc.org/personalregistration. If your institution is a current customer with IP registered, you will be able to access all free content. Other institutions can apply for free online access to our newest journals using our online form: www.rsc.org/freeaccess.

ChemSpider

Have you heard about the RSC's award winning chemical structure and text based search engine—ChemSpider? It's FREE! ChemSpider provides access to:

•  millions of chemical structures

•  an abundance of additional property information

• tools to upload, curate and use the data

• a multitude of other online services like the RSC Publishing Platform

ChemSpider is one of the richest single sources of structure-based chemistry information. Visit www.chemspider.com (for mobile devices: cs.m.chemspider.com)

RSC 2011 conferences and events

As a learned society, RSC hosts more than 300 international conferences and events, the following have been selected as ones you may find of interest. Visit www.rsc.org/ConferencesAndEvents to view the complete schedule of events for 2011.

Faraday Discussion 151: Hydrogen Storage Materials

Oxon, UK, 18–20 April

Faraday Discussion 152: Gold

Cardiff, UK, 4–6 July

10th International Conference on Materials Chemistry (MC10)

The flagship event of the Materials Chemistry Division

Manchester, UK, 4–7 July

Challenges in Renewable Energy (ISACS4)

Boston, USA, 5–8 July

Challenges in Organic Materials & Supramolecular Chemistry (ISACS6)

Beijing, China, 2–5 September

International Year of Chemistry 2011

IUPAC (in conjunction with the UN and UNESCO) have proclaimed 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry (IYC), the goals of which are: to increase the public appreciation of chemistry in meeting world needs; to encourage interest in chemistry among young people; and to generate enthusiasm for the creative future of chemistry. The RSC will be leading the way in IYC 2011, supporting this important initiative through a series of events and activities.

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