Immediate changes for authors of Technical Notes

Lab on a Chip has a reputation for high-quality content and leading the field of technologies related to microfluidics. Recently the LOC Board looked again at the content we publish and had some concerns about the varying quality of recent Technical Notes.

Initially, Technical Notes in Lab on a Chip were papers that did not quite achieve the high publication standards of the journal, so we worked with authors to improve these papers but limited these papers to three pages and called them Technical Notes. After working with authors, some of these three page Technical Notes were of an extremely high calibre and were well cited.

As these have proved to be useful and popular, the Lab on a Chip Editorial Board has decided to give these papers an improved status within the journal and rename them, as Technical Innovations to better reflect the contribution they make to the community; at the same time the requirements for the content of these articles will also change.

Consequently, Technical Innovations will be the technical equivalent of communications, but rather than dealing with innovative science, they will deal with innovative technology. Therefore they will need to meet the following criteria:

1. Describe new and innovative technologies of immediate value to the lab on a chip, microfluidics or miniaturisation communities.

2. Offer novel technical insight/s to new and/or existing problems

Technical Innovations not meeting these criteria will be returned to authors without review, as will any further Technical Notes received from the date of this Editorial.

Technical Innovations should be no longer than 3/4 journal pages and should clearly detail the innovative technology described and its potential value to the community. Incremental technical developments or improvements to instrumentation will not be considered.

Lab on a chip and micro/nano fluidic technologies continue to develop at a rapid pace, to address the fast developing nature of the subject, and also allow authors to publish work from related areas that could help progress our own field, Lab on a Chip has changed its subtitle to reflect the growing interdisciplinary nature of the journal. Therefore, the journal now has the subtitle:

Miniaturisation for chemistry, physics, biology, materials science and bioengineering

Other new developments are the introduction of Educational Focus articles to supplement the Grand Challenges articles introduced earlier this year and the introduction of the LOC Blog pages and Twitter feed.

Finally, we also welcome Professor Abe Lee as our first Associate Editor for LOC to receive and process LOC content and Professor Ali Khademhosseini who will be producing the LOC Highlights section of the journal.

Professor George Whitesides and the Lab on a Chip Editorial Board

September 2011

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