News from the Analytical Methods editors

Editor-in-Chief & journal scope

I am very pleased and honored to take over as Editor-in-Chief of Analytical Methods. I certainly have big shoes to fill. Sue Lunte did an awesome job as our previous Editor-in-Chief. She has been involved with Analytical Methods since its launch in 2009. She was initially an Associate Editor and she took over as Editor-in-Chief starting in March 2013. She helped to define the scope of the journal, build a great Editorial Board, and move the impact factor forward substantially. Everyone that knows Sue is aware that she is a great mentor and she certainly has been very supportive to me, both in my career and in this new role. My main goal is to continue her momentum and take our journal to new heights.

Before taking over as Editor-in-Chief, I was an Associate Editor (started in 2013), handling the peer-review of submitted manuscripts. I have also published 8 papers in Analytical Methods. The most common question I have received during my time spent with this journal is, “What is the difference between Analytical Methods and Analyst?” To help answer this question, we have re-examined and updated our journal scope.

To be clear, our sister journal Analyst strives to publish analytical and bioanalytical research that reports premier fundamental discoveries and inventions, and the applications of those discoveries, unconfined by traditional discipline barriers. I am pleased to announce our revised scope that is now on the journal website:

Analytical Methods welcomes early applications of new analytical methods with clear societal impact. We require that systems are demonstrated with real samples and that methods and technology reported in the journal are sufficiently innovative, robust and compared to other available methods for the intended application. Developments are encouraged within the fields of global health, drug development, pharmaceutical analysis, Point-of-Care diagnostics, molecular diagnostics, applied microfluidics and nanotechnology, proteomics, metabolomics, environmental, neuroscience, biochemical and forensic analysis, agriculture and food science, and industrial process development.

It is our goal to publish papers that are novel, innovative, and of high quality that fit this scope and will be of interest to those in the analytical chemistry community. If you want any clarification on the journal scope and feedback on whether your work is appropriate for submission, please feel free to contact us at E-mail: methods-rsc@rsc.org.

Editorial board

Associate Editors are a key part to any well-run journal and we certainly have an outstanding group. I am happy to announce the recent appointments of two new Associate Editors; Chris Easley (Auburn University, USA) (Fig. 1) and Jill Venton (University of Virginia, USA) (Fig. 2). We have also appointed a Reviews Editor, Tony Killard (University of the West of England, UK) (Fig. 3) who will handle all review submissions (a dedicated Reviews Editor is a first for our journal).

Fig. 1 Chris Easley, Auburn University, USA

Fig. 2 Jill Venton, University of Virginia, USA

Fig. 3 Tony Killard, University of the West of England, UK

Below is a full listing of our current Associate Editors along with the areas they cover. When you submit a paper to our journal you are able to select your preferred Associate Editor based upon their areas of expertise. Their efforts are very much appreciated and they do a great deal of service to the analytical chemistry community.

 

• Craig Banks, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK – Materials and nanotechnology for sensing, electroanalytical, security and forensics.

 

• Jonas Bergquist, Uppsala University, Sweden – Bioanalytical and biomedical analysis, clinical applications, separation science and mass spectrometry.

 

• Jailson de Andrade, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil – Environmental, atmospheric, food and beverage analysis.

 

• Christopher J. Easley, Auburn University, USA – Microfluidics, fluorescence and electrochemical biosensing, DNA-driven assays, microscopy and image analysis.

 

• Juan F García-Reyes, University of Jaén, Spain – Mass spectrometry, environmental, food and biological analysis, flow analysis.

 

• Juewen Liu, University of Waterloo, Canada – Bioanalytical, environmental monitoring, nanomaterials.

 

• Fiona Regan, Dublin City University, Ireland – Environmental monitoring and analysis, materials for separation and sensing, passive sampling.

 

• Michael Roper, Florida State University, USA – Bioanalytical, microfluidics, electrophoretic separations and optical detection methods.

 

• Jill Venton, University of Virginia, USA – Bioanalytical, electrochemistry, sensors, nanomaterials.

 

• Guobao Xu, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, China – Bioanalytical, pharmaceutical and nanomaterial analysis.

 

• Xiu-Ping Yan, Nankai University, China – Environmental, agricultural and food analysis, archaeometry, materials for separation.

 

• Tony Killard, University of West England, UK – Reviews Editor.

 

In addition to our Associate Editors, we have several high profile Editorial Board members who help drive the vision and direction of our journal. These include Emanuel Carrilho (University of São Carlos, Brazil), Jim Luong (Dow Chemical, Canada), and Sabeth Verpoorte (University of Groningen, The Netherlands). I, and everyone involved with the journal, appreciate their efforts. The journal is also supported by the Analytical Methods Advisory Board which represents the breadth of interests and diversity of the journal's community more broadly. More details on the Advisory Board can be found on the journal website (http://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/about-journals/analytical-methods/).

A journal on the rise

Analytical Methods was launched in the autumn of 2009 so it is still a relatively new journal (for reference, Analyst started in 1876). We have seen our impact factor steadily rise over this time to its current value of ∼2. We have solid plans in place to further improve upon our impact factor and I am confident we will succeed in this goal. In addition to impact factor, a newer journal metric now being used by InCites™ Journal Citation Reports® is the Eigenfactor®, which ranks journals in a similar fashion as to how Google ranks websites (using algorithms to evaluate the total network of journal citations). Analytical Methods has seen a large increase in this metric, with the current score of 0.01946 being a 115% increase over our initial 2013 score of 0.00907. Using the Eigenfactor metric, Analytical Methods is in the top 8.7% of all journals in Web of Science (out of ∼12 000 journals, thanks to Chris Easley for this analysis!).

Finally, since we are a methods-based journal, the number of paper downloads is another indicator of our journal impact, since researchers (especially those in industry or a government lab) may be utilizing a method but cannot publish a paper on it. In 2016, we published a total of 1000 papers. The total number of paper downloads in 2016 was 370 231, which is up from 266 654 downloads in 2014 (an increase of 39%). 2016 downloads by country are shown in Fig. 4. All of these metrics clearly demonstrate that Analytical Methods is a journal that is growing in influence and importance. Along with Analyst and Lab on a Chip, we are part of a strong analytical chemistry presence at the Royal Society of Chemistry. Our journals work together to help disseminate high impact work in the analytical sciences. I hope you will consider publishing your work in our journal and help contribute to the continued rise of our journal.

Fig. 4 2016 download data for Analytical Methods by country (source: Royal Society of Chemistry).

 

Scott Martin

Editor-in-Chief, Analytical Methods

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