Soft Matter – Staying strong

The number of times we hear researchers say ‘Soft Matter is a great journal’ makes working on this publication a pleasure. We are constantly aware that Soft Matter rose from a strong and diverse community of scientists originating from a multitude of disciplines. We strive to maintain this multi-disciplinary aspect of the journal while ensuring the high quality of the papers published. In 2011 the journal expanded with the growth and change of the scientific field of soft matter, and maintained its excellent quality, demonstrated by a consistently strong impact factor.

Soft Matter delved into its broad scope by publishing four new themed issues on a diverse range of topics (Table 1). The plenary and other oral presentations from the 2010 International Soft Matter Conference were showcased in issue 4. The Guest Editors, Juan Colmenero, Dieter Richter and Roque Hidalgo-Alvarez, began their Editorial¹ by repeating the words of Nobel Prize winner Pierre de Gennes, when he asked “What do we mean by soft matter?”,² a question which predicted the growth, diversity and interdisciplinary nature of this field, showcased by the articles in this themed issue, and indeed all of the work published in Soft Matter.

Table 1 Themed issues published in 2011

Title	Issue	Guest Editors
International Soft Matter Conference 2010	4	Juan Colmenero	University of Basque Country, Spain
		Dieter Richter	Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
		Roque Hidalgo-Alvarez	University of Granada, Spain
Active Soft Matter	7	Fred MacKintosh	Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands
		Mike Cates	University of Edinburgh, UK
Dynamics and Rheology of Complex Fluid–Fluid Interfaces	17	Gerry Fuller	Stanford University, USA
		Jan Vermant	K. U. Leuven, Belgium
Biomimetic Soft Matter	20	Ian Hamley	University of Reading, UK

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The Active Soft Matter themed issue was motivated by the growing number of physicists, chemists and materials scientists exploring “active states of matter” inspired by biological systems kept far from equilibrium, such as cellular processes driven by enzymes (‘molecular motors’).³ Guest Editors Fred MacKintosh and Michael Cates collected together an exciting group of papers which reflect the dynamism and variety of this growing field.

The second half of the year saw the publication of the themed issue on Dynamics and Rheology of Complex Fluid–Fluid Interfaces, with Guest Editors Jan Vermant (Soft Matter Editorial Board Member) and Gerald Fuller. The issue showcases the variety of research challenges currently being addressed in the emerging field of interfacial rheology, including new experimental methods to investigate these systems and their dynamics.

“Biomaterials are often soft materials” states Ian Hamley,⁴ the Guest Editor of Biomimetic Soft Matter, the final themed issue published in 2011 and which presents a selection of extremely topical articles on these systems. Research on soft materials that mimic properties of biological materials has important applications in biomedicine, and this themed issue reports on many fascinating discoveries and insights.

Thank you to all our Guest Editors who made these themed issues possible. And, if you have an idea for a good topic for a Soft Matter themed issue, please get in touch.

In 2012, we have just as exciting a line-up of themed issues as 2011. Look out for the themed issue on Bridging the Gap between Hard and Soft Colloids, with Guest Editors Dimitris Vlassopoulos (University of Crete, Greece) and Michel Cloitre (ESPCI, France) to the start the year off. Also confirmed for 2012 are themed issues on Mechanics and Physics of Hydrogels, guest edited by Jian Ping Gong (Hokkaido University, Japan) and Wei Hong (Iowa State University, USA), and Polyelectrolytes in Soft Matter and Biology with Guest Editors Michael Rubinstein (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA) and Garegin Papoian (University of Maryland, USA).

The end of 2011 saw Christos Likos changing roles from Editorial Board Member to Associate Editor. Christos is based at the University of Vienna, Austria, and his research involves coarse-graining, structure and dynamics of complex fluids. Christos's undoubted enthusiasm and passion will be a great asset to the editorial team, and we are looking forward to working with him in his new role. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Christos and our other Editorial Board Members, Anna Balazs, Jian Ping Gong, Lennart Piculell, Alejandro Rey, Sam Safran, Jan Vermant and Associate Editors, Lei Jiang and Darrin Pochan, whose council through-out the year has made Soft Matter the success that it is. Recognition must also go to the Soft Matter team (Fig. 1), who process the manuscripts, handle peer-review and perform the technical editing.

Fig. 1 The Soft Matter team: (top L to R) Russell Johnson, Charlie Quigg, Serin Dabb, Liz Davies, Peter Moorby, Catherine Bacon, Ian Coates; (bottom L to R) Hannah Porter, Sophia Anderton, Amaya Camara-Campos, Lucy Gilbert, Natalie Ford; (absent) Paul Gibb.

The Soft Matter Lectureship is now in its third year of running, and we are constantly impressed with the high calibre of nominations we receive. This annual Lectureship was established by the journal in 2009 to honour a younger scientist who has made a significant contribution to the soft matter field, and the recipient of the Lectureship presents three lectures through-out the year. We would like to congratulate the 2011 winner, Professor Michael Solomon (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA), who was nominated for his outstanding contributions to the science of soft matter by developing new techniques in confocal microscopy and applying them to address scientific questions in the area of colloidal gels, anisotropic particle assembly and colloidal crystals.

We have a number of ways to promote the great content we have in Soft Matter. In 2011 the Soft Matter Blog hosted posts on ‘Hot Articles’ (Soft Matter papers that were highly recommended by referees) in addition to other news such as conferences, and ‘of-interest’ pieces by web-writer, Dr Katherine Thomas (University of Cambridge, UK). We encourage you to have a read-through of the blog to keep up-to-date with the journal and other relevant news regarding the soft matter community. Soft Matter is also on Twitter and, from the end of 2011, on Facebook, so feel free to ‘like’ us on-line!

Our biggest announcement for 2012 is that Soft Matter will be going weekly (issues are published approximately once a fortnight at the moment). The growing popularity of Soft Matter has meant that we are now able to publish weekly issues of the journal, the same as other, more established journals published by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

We would like to finish up by wishing everyone a great holiday season. Soft Matter has had a very successful year, and we've enjoyed meeting authors and readers at the various conferences and site-visits we've attended. Please remember to look out for us at conferences through-out 2012! Thank you for your continual support, and if you ever have feedback on the journal, don't hesitate to send us an e-mail at E-mail: softmatter-rsc@rsc.org.

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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:

Tribology (Faraday Discussion 156)

2–4 April 2012, Southampton, UK

www.rsc.org/FD156

Soft Matter Approaches to Structured Foods (Faraday Discussion 158)

2–4 July 2012, Wageningen, The Netherlands

www.rsc.org/FD158

Lipids and Membrane Biophysics (Faraday Discussion 161)

11–13 September 2012, London, UK

www.rsc.org/FD161

References

1. Juan Colmenero, Dieter Richter and Roque Hidalgo-Alvarez, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 1245–1246.
2. P.-G. de Gennes, Noble Lecture: Soft Matter, 9 December 1991, College de France, Paris, France.
3. Michael E. Cates and Fred C. MacKintosh, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 3050–3051.
4. Ian W. Hamley, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 9533–9534.

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