CRYSTAL GROWTH & DESIGN 2008 VOL. 8, NO. 1 1
Editorial Expanding Horizons Where to start in summarizing Crystal Growth & Design’s 2007 activities while welcoming you to an exciting new year? Well, first and foremost, I need to thank all of you for your papers, refereeing, and editorial services, which rocketed the Journal up to an impact factor of 4.339; our highest ever, #1 in the subfield of crystallography, and #14 in the field of chemistry! The rise in impact factor has not gone unnoticed, and the number of manuscripts being received has also shown appreciable growth over the past year. This has come in a year of much realignment and reorganization both personally and for the Journal office. Many of you are aware that I have accepted a joint appointment between The University of Alabama and The Queen’s University of Belfast, with my major appointment in Belfast. This has necessitated some coordination of the editorial office for operation in Belfast, and Ms. Mihaela Gurau has been added to the editorial staff to oversee this office extension. The Alabama office has had quite a year as well. Ms. Amy Ervin was promoted to Coordinating Editor in January, two new assistants were hired early in the year (Ms. Adriane McKenney and Ms. Laura Amster), and everyone moved into new offices in Shelby Hall, The University of Alabama’s new interdisciplinary science building. Of course, as these things go, this move came at approximately the same time as the Journal’s migration to the new ACS Paragon Plus Environment! Needless to say, the tireless efforts of Amy and her staff have much to do with the success of Crystal Growth & Design. 2008 promises to be another banner year for the Journal, with every sign of continued growth, matching the scientific excitement continuing to build in the general areas the Journal represents. One area of such growth can be found in China, where the fields of both crystal growth and crystal engineering are flourishing. I experienced this first hand this year in October at the Fifth Chinese National Symposium on Structural Chemistry in Fuzhou, China, organized by Associate Editor Maochun Hong. As part of this meeting, we presented a special symposium on the Chinese Strategy of Crystal Growth & Design. In addition to Prof. Hong and myself, the Journal was represented at these meetings by Mike Zaworotko (Associate Editor), XiaoMing Chen (Topic Editor), Susumu Kitagawa (Topic Editor), Zhiping Zheng (Topic Editor), Amy Ervin (Coordinating Editor), and Mihaela Gurau (Belfast Editorial Assistant). Overall there were over 400 papers and over 450 participants, approximately 1/3 of which were students. Representatives of the major academic funding sources also attended, and it was quite clear that this field is important and growing within China. We can expect the number and quality of scientific papers arising from Chinese authors to continue their upward trends.
From left to right: Editor-in-Chief Robin Rogers; Belfast Editorial Assistant Mihaela Gurau; Associate Editor Mike Zaworotko; Coordinating Editor Amy Ervin; Associate Editor Maochun Hong.
Coordinating Editor Ms. Amy Ervin is recognized by the participants.
In closing, I would like to thank retiring Associate Editor Prof. Roger Davey of The University of Manchester for his service to the Journal. I would also once again like to thank you for an outstanding year for Crystal Growth & Design. All of us wish you the best and look forward to working with you in 2008. Please keep those suggestions, and papers, coming.
Robin D. Rogers Editor-in-Chief, The Queen’s UniVersity of Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, and The UniVersity of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama
10.1021/cg701199n CCC: $40.75 2008 American Chemical Society Published on Web 01/02/2008
CG701199N
