Editorial pubs.acs.org/cm
A New Editor-in-Chief for Chemistry of Materials
A
of standards and a decision to focus more directly on our core ‘Chemistry’ of Materials theme. As a result, our Impact Factor reached an all-time high of 8.238 in 2012, while citations to our papers continue to grow, reaching a new high of 74,651. We introduced our first Special Issue in 1994, which was dedicated to “Structure and Chemistry of the Organic Solid State”. This was followed by “Nanostructured Materials” (1996), “Sol-Gel Derived Materials” (1997), “Frontiers in Inorganic Solid-State Chemistry” (1998), “Organic−Inorganic Nanocomposite Materials” (2001), “Organic Electronics” (2004), “Templated Materials” (2008), “Materials Chemistry of Energy Conversion” (2010), “π-Functional Materials” (2011), “Materials for Biological Applications” (2012), and “Synthetic and Mechanistic Advances in Nanocrystal Growth” (2013). These Special Issues, which include Reviews by experts in various aspects of the subject area, have contributed greatly to the development of the field of materials chemistry, as shown by the many citations they have generated in a wide variety of journals. In January we will publish a celebratory Special Issue to mark the 25th anniversary of Chemistry of Materials. Unlike previous Special Issues, this one will consist entirely of invited Reviews and Perspectives by world experts on a broad range of topics in materials chemistry. In addition to publication online, this Special Issue will be made available as an edited volume in printed form, organized according to subject area and accompanied by an introductory editorial. We believe it will prove useful, not only as a source of information regarding key areas of current scientific and technological interest, but also as a collected volume of papers that illustrate the wide range and scope of materials chemistry. Our hope is that this volume will serve to inform and inspire future generations of materials scientists and contribute to the continued growth and development of materials chemistry as a distinct and inclusive field of chemistry. From the beginning, Chemistry of Materials has been a group effort, and the success it has achieved is owed to the many people who have contributed their ideas, time and energy to make it what it is today. This includes, first and foremost, the authors and reviewers of our papers, whose work has shaped and defined the journal as we currently know it. The members of our Editorial Advisory Boards over the years have been among our most loyal and consistent authors and reviewers, while serving to guide editorial policy and as a source of ideas for Special Issues. The Editors, past and present, who have guided the papers through the evaluation, revision and publication process, have been intimately involved in the planning and shaping of this journal and have organized and edited each of our Special Issues. Finally, without the help and support of the ACS and its staff, both in Columbus, Ohio, and Washington, DC, there would not have been a Chemistry of Materials journal and the enormous improvements in manu-
fter 25 years as Editor-in-Chief of Chemistry of Materials, I am turning over the reins to a new EIC, who I believe will continue our rise to new heights in quality, interest and usefulness. I am pleased to welcome Professor Jillian Buriak of the University of Alberta in Canada, who will become EIC in January, 2014. In 1988, when I was asked to become the EIC of a new journal in the area of materials chemistry, the subject was hardly recognized as a field of study, although work in the area had been carried out for many years by chemists, materials scientists and engineers. As the first journal to identify itself specifically with materials chemistry, we were breaking new ground and I chose a title that would emphasize its fundamental connection to chemistry and its chief focus: i.e., ‘Chemistry’ of Materials. We have tried to maintain this focus throughout the history of the journal, while recognizing that research in this area is intrinsically interdisciplinary in nature and intimately connected with the fields of materials science and technology, solid state physics and chemical engineering. By the time our first issue appeared in January 1989, we had established an Editorial office at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute staffed by Editorial Assistant Meeli Leith, who has continued to serve the journal since its inception. My colleague at Rensselaer, Professor Gary Wnek, and Professor Dennis Hess in the Chemical Engineering Department at UC Berkeley agreed to serve as its first two Associate Editors. Together we developed an editorial structure, an international Editorial Board and invited papers for our first issues. We began as a bimonthly journal and published 109 papers that first year. As interest in the journal grew, we went to a monthly publication schedule in 1993 and our current semimonthly schedule in 2003. By 2003 we were receiving over 40 papers each week and had expanded to eleven Editorial offices in five countries. Fortunately, in 1999 the ACS journals began online manuscript submission, and by 2003, we were no longer handling hardcopy submissions and mailing copies to reviewers at an appreciable rate. Today, it is hard to remember what journal publication was like in the days of paper manuscript submission, review and publication. Due to the enormous growth in manuscript submissions, however, our level of effort as individual Editors and, as a journal overall, has actually increased. Less than 10 years later our manuscript submission rate had doubled. This upward trend in materials chemistry manuscript submissions is continuing and is by no means confined to Chemistry of Materials. Over the same period the ACS added several new journals dealing with various aspects of materials chemistry (i.e., Nano Letters and Crystal Growth & Design in 2001; ACS Nano in 2007; ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces in 2009; ACS Catalysis in 2011, and ACS Photonics starting in 2014) and expanded another (i.e., Journal of Physical Chemistry), to accommodate papers in the materials chemistry area. In comparison to the increase in submissions, our growth in published papers has been more limited, reflecting a tightening © 2013 American Chemical Society
Published: December 23, 2013 4837
dx.doi.org/10.1021/cm403441g | Chem. Mater. 2013, 25, 4837−4838
Chemistry of Materials
Editorial
script processing time over the years would not have been possible. I thank all of these people for their efforts on behalf of Chemistry of Materials, but owe special thanks to all of the Editors who have served this journal over the past 25 years, while maintaining their own active and productive research programs. They are an outstanding group of scientists and individuals and I will miss our frequent interactions. Three of these Editors, and Coordinating Editor Meeli Leith, are completing their last terms as Editors this year. These include Ed Chandross, who has served as our Triage Editor since 2008 and whose tenure has coincided, not coincidently, with a 63% increase in our Impact Factor since he started, and senior Editors John Greedan and Jim Crivello, who have been with the journal since 1999 and 2000, respectively. We are grateful to these Editors for their many years of dedicated service to the materials chemistry community. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as the founding Editor of an ACS journal, and I will forever treasure the friendships made and the opportunities afforded as EIC of Chemistry of Materials over the past 25 years.
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Leonard V. Interrante, Editor-in-Chief, Chemistry of Materials
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/cm403441g | Chem. Mater. 2013, 25, 4837−4838
