Journal of Materials Chemistry: looking forward

This Editorial marks the end of the first year for both of us at the helm of Journal of Materials Chemistry and what an enjoyable year it has been!

For us, the highlight has definitely been getting to know the materials chemistry community better. We have been to several conferences around the world and have met with authors and readers, both long-standing and new. We have seen many cutting-edge presentations on the future of materials science. We have seen how materials science is such a key discipline for addressing the challenges faced by today's society. Journal of Materials Chemistry is delighted to play a role in the dissemination of this important research and the journal's presence and impact is growing within the community. This was confirmed by the journal's latest impact factor, announced in June, which was the highest ever value for the journal at 5.1 (Figure 1)!

Fig. 1 Journal of Materials Chemistry's growing impact factor.

2011 also saw the appointment of Journal of Materials Chemistry's fourth Associate Editor. Dr Natalie Stingelin (Imperial College, London, UK, Figure 2) joined Professors Vince Rotello, Ram Seshadri and Dongyuan Zhao in this role to offer our authors further choice about whether their paper is handled by a professional editor in our Editorial office or one of our Associate Editors. Natalie's research area complements those of Vince, Ram and Dongyuan and is focussed on organic functional materials. If you would like to suggest your next submission to Journal of Materials Chemistry is handled by Natalie or one of our other Associate Editors, please note it during the submission process.

Fig. 2 Dr Natalie Stingelin, the newest member of the Journal of Materials Chemistry Associate Editor team.

We published several topical themed issues throughout 2011, listed in Table 1. We would like to thank everyone who contributed to one of these issues and a particular thank you to each of the guest editors who put their efforts into making these a success. We hope you have enjoyed reading them and look out for our 2012 themed issues on topics from organic optoelectronic materials to MOFs to materials for biosurfaces and more.

Table 1 2011 themed issues

Themed issue	Issue	Guest Editor(s)
Celebrating the 70th birthday of Professor Fred Wudl	5	Dmytro Perepichka, Maurizio Prato, Michael Bendikov, Nazario Martin
Chemically Modified Graphenes	10	Rod Ruoff
Mechanoresponsive materials	23	Chris Weder
Advanced Materials for Lithium Batteries	27	Saiful Islam and Linda Nazar
Chemical Transformations of Nanoparticles	31	Dmitri Talapin and Yadong Yin
Materials Chemistry of Nanofabrication	37	Ken Carter
Self-organisation of nanoparticles	42	Nicholas Kotov
Materials Chemistry in the Emerging Field of Synthetic Biology	47	Cameron Alexander and Rachel O'Reilly

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Another highlight of 2011 was the presentation of the 2011 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship to Professor Liberato Manna (Italian Institute of Technology, Genova and TU Delft, The Netherlands). This Lectureship is awarded to a researcher at the earlier stages of their scientific career, typically within 10 years of attaining their doctorate or equivalent degree. The Editorial Board chose Professor Manna in recognition of the contribution he has made to the materials chemistry field, in particular, the synthesis, structural characterization and assembly of inorganic nanostructures for applications in energy, photonics and biology.

There is also much to look forward to for the year ahead, as Journal of Materials Chemistry continues to improve, attract more and higher quality papers, and a larger readership. We will be attending a number of conferences throughout the year so look out for us and please do come and say hi! Keep up-to-date with news on themed issues, Hot papers, Editorial and Advisory Board updates and all the news from Journal of Materials Chemistry by following our blog (blogs.rsc.org/jm/) or following us on Twitter (@JMaterChem).

We would like to thank all of you who contribute to making Journal of Materials Chemistry a success, from our authors, readers and referees, to our Editorial and Advisory Board members and our staff in the Editorial office (Figure 3).

Fig. 3 The Journal of Materials Chemistry team (left column, top to bottom: Peter Moorby, Tegan Thomas, Liz Davies, Jon Watson, middle column: Ross McLaren, Serin Dabb, Sylvia Pegg, right column: Paul Cooper, Russell Johnson, Kate Godinho, Jess Cocker).

Best wishes for the holiday season and we hope to see you in 2012!

Dr Liz Davies, Editor, Journal of Materials Chemistry

Professor Seth Marder, Chair, Journal of Materials Chemistry

RSC Publishing growth and successes

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• Food and Nutritional Components in Focus

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RSC Conferences and Events 2012

The RSC organises a broad range of conferences and events to promote the advancement of the chemical sciences. Please visit the website for the most up to date listing: www.rsc.org/events

The major scientific meetings planned for 2012 include:

Challenges in Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology (ISACS7)

12–15 June 2012, Edinburgh, UK

www.rsc.org/isacs7

Challenges in Inorganic and Materials Chemistry (ISACS8)

19–22 July 2012, Toronto, Canada

www.rsc.org/isacs8

Challenges in Nanoscience (ISACS9)

31 August–3 September 2012, Xiamen, China

www.rsc.org/isacs9

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