Environmental Science: Nano – looking back, looking forward

The beginning of a new year is always a time of reflection and transition as we look back on the past and look forward to the yet to be determined future. The year 2018 saw Environmental Science: Nano continue its growth and development as a key literature resource for the nanoscience and nanotechnology field. As a journal, we saw a 16% increase in submissions over 2017, a 17% increase in published articles, and we maintain a very healthy impact factor of 6.087. Current indications suggest that those numbers will only further improve in 2019.

Looking backwards, 2018 saw the departures of founding Associate Editors Greg Lowry and Kristin Schirmer. Both Greg and Kristin were instrumental in making Environmental Science: Nano the premier journal it is today and we cannot thank them enough for their service. While we bid adieu to Greg and Kristin, in 2018 we welcomed three outstanding new Associate Editors in Zhang Lin of South China University of Technology, John Fortner of Yale University, and Joel Pedersen of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

In 2018, we also introduced our Emerging Investigator series (https://rsc.li/esnano-emerging). This ongoing series of papers, the first of which was published in April, serves as a means by which Environmental Science: Nano can showcase our best early career (i.e., less than ten years post PhD) investigators. If you are eligible and interested in submitting a paper for this series then please feel free to contact either myself or the RSC Editorial Office (E-mail: esnano-rsc@rsc.org) for details.

Entering my second year as Editor-in-Chief, I look forward to what is promising to be a very exciting year. In the coming months, we will unveil a refined scope for the journal that simultaneously maintains our core focus on the environmental applications and implications of nanotechnology, but also expands into new cross-disciplinary areas. In addition, we are planning what we think will be interesting themed collections focusing on nano-enabled water technologies and nanomaterial–plant interactions. And finally, early in 2019 we will announce new additions to our Editorial Board as we further expand our global reach.

Speaking of global reach – ever since our inaugural issue, Environmental Science: Nano has aimed to publish the best environmentally focused nanotechnology papers from all around the world. As I reviewed the papers we published from 2017, it was clear to me that we are consistently publishing top quality papers from Australia, China, Europe, and the US. However, the numbers of papers published from outside of those countries or regions are not as high as we think they should be if we are to truly be an international journal. While we get submissions from all across the world, far too often they do not meet the high threshold we have set for Environmental Science: Nano either because they fall outside of our scope or they do not provide broadly applicable and novel insights about environmental nanosystems. One of our hopes in modifying the journal's scope is to make it more clear which research topics readily fall within the bounds of our journal and which topics do not. Our hope is that such information will enhance the likelihood that important papers from all corners of the world have a home in Environmental Science: Nano.

In closing, if you see me or any of the other members of the Editorial Board at conferences or anywhere else then please be sure and say hello. We are always more than happy to talk with our authors, reviewers, and friends! My best wishes to you and I hope you have a prosperous and successful 2019.

 

Peter Vikesland

Nick Prillaman Professor, Virginia Tech

Editor-in-Chief, Environmental Science: Nano

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