Another record year for Soft Matter!
Reflecting upon the last year, it is hard to know where to start with Soft Matter's most memorable moments of 2010. It has been a great year, with a rise in impact factor, increased visibility, superb themed issues and many more highlights. However, for us, the most striking success of the journal has been the overwhelming support shown by the soft matter community. This year the Soft Matter team had the opportunity to attend a variety of conferences. During these meetings, we were delighted with the community's response to the journal and would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the support you have given as authors, readers and referees. This collaboration was confirmed by the release of the 2009 impact factors, calculated by ISI. Soft Matter remains the leading journal in its field with an impact factor of 4.87, its highest ever value (Fig. 1)! | ||
| Fig. 1 Soft Matter impact factor. | ||
Since it was launched, Soft Matter has received an increasing number of high quality articles year-on-year and 2010 was no exception. This has allowed an impressive growth, with over 700 articles published this year (Fig. 2), resulting in higher visibility for our authors. This, coupled with the increase in impact factor and the unique interdisciplinary scope of the journal, makes it clear to see why Soft Matter has become the first choice for authors to publish their high quality work on all aspects of soft matter.
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| Fig. 2 Number of articles published in Soft Matter. | ||
In 2011, we welcome Christos Likos (University of Vienna, Austria), Jian Ping Gong (Hokkaido University, Japan) and Sam Safran (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel) to the Editorial Board (Fig. 3). We are also pleased to announce that Lei Jiang (ICCAS, Beijing, China) will begin as an Associate Editor for Soft Matter, alongside our current Associate Editor, Darrin Pochan. Lei will be accepting submissions from January 2011 on all aspects of soft matter. We say goodbye to Phil Messersmith, Patricia Bassereau, Masatsugu Shimomura and Joachim Spatz as they complete their terms as Editorial Board members and thank them for all their efforts in contributing to the development of Soft Matter.
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| Fig. 3 Christos Likos, Jian Ping Gong and Sam Safran join the Soft Matter Editorial Board. | ||
Following the success of the inaugural 2009 Soft Matter Lectureship, presented to Emanuela Zaccarelli (Universita' “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy), Bartosz Grzybowski (Northwestern University, USA), was awarded the 2010 Lectureship by the Editorial Board for his work on self-assembly and adaptive systems. This Lectureship recognises a scientist in the early stages of their research career who has made a significant contribution to the soft matter field. Nominations are now open for the 2011 Soft Matter Lectureship—see our blog for the nomination criteria and instructions.
In 2010, Soft Matter has published a number of high impact themed issues on such diverse topics as tissue engineering, granular and jammed materials, the physics of buckling and emerging themes in soft matter (Fig. 4, Table 1). We would like to thank the guest editors of these issues for their hard work in making these issues so successful. In 2011, we are looking forward to continuing to publish high quality themed issues. Look out for our issues on active soft matter, rheology and biomimetic soft matter, and also an issue of articles from the speakers at the International Soft Matter Conference, held in Granada in July 2010.
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| Fig. 4 2010 themed issue covers. | ||
| Issue | Themed issue title | Guest editor(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Emerging themes in active materials | Anna Balazs and Julia Yeomans |
| 13 | Granular and jammed materials | Sid Nagel and Andrea Liu |
| 20 | Tissue engineering | Molly Stevens and Ali Khademhosseini |
| 22 | Physics of buckling | Al Crosby |
In 2010, Soft Matter transferred to the RSC's new online submission system (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sm). This system is more user-friendly and makes the submission process more straightforward and streamlined for authors. To keep up to date with all the latest news from Soft Matter, check our blog (http://blogs.rsc.org/sm/) or sign up to the blog's RSS feed at http://blogs.rsc.org/sm/feed/. Here you can find out about the latest Hot articles, most accessed articles, Editorial Board news, themed issues and all other journal news. You can also follow us on Twitter @softmatter.
We look forward to your continuing support in 2011!
Liz Davies, 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.
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 connects 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.
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.comchemspider.com (for mobile devices: cs.m.chemspider.com)
RSC 2011 Conferences and Events
As a learned society, the RSC hosts more than 300 international conferences and events, the following have been outlined as areas you may find of interest. Visit www.rsc.org/ConferencesAndEvents to view the complete schedule of events for 2011.6th International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry (6-ISMSC)
Brighton, UK, 3–7 July
10th International Conference on Materials Chemistry (MC10)
The flagship event of the Materials Chemistry Division
Manchester, UK, 4–7 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.
| This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2011 |