Materials Horizons Blog

Materials Horizons Communications must now include a separate paragraph (no more than 200 words) concisely demonstrating the new insights of the work. This text should highlight conceptual advances and not be a summary of the work reported, as in the article abstract. The text should be easy to read and accessible to the broad readership of the journal.

For more information, Materials Horizons article guidelines can be found here.

When will I see a change?
This change has taken affect from now and is applicable for all new Communication article submissions. Communication articles currently under review or accepted and going through production are not subject to these new guidelines. This new ‘Conceptual insights’ box will appear on the first page of Communication articles.

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Materials Horizons will be publishing its first Advance Articles very soon! Don’t forget there’s a variety of ways to keep up with the latest news about the journal.

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• Sign up for the Materials Horizons Newsletter for a round-up of all the journals important news
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If you want to be amongst the first people to read the first Materials Horizons articles online, you can sign up for the Materials Horizons RSS feed or the table of contents e-Alert.

Welcome to Materials Horizons, a new materials journal published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. In this Editorial we hope to provide some insight in to the ideas that led to the creation of the journal, a vision of what it could be, and what we expect will distinguish it from other journals. It is worth stating explicitly at the outset that while the Royal Society of Chemistry is a society with the mission to advance excellence in the chemical sciences, the launch of Materials Horizons is not an attempt to create a “chemo-centric” journal. Rather, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s decision to create Materials Horizons was made with a keen recognition that materials research is intrinsically highly multi-disciplinary, and having an extremely high quality society-based journal that embraces this multi-disciplinary nature can be of significant value to our community.

Below we outline some of the principles and values that will drive editorial policy, and describe what we hope the journal will be. Armed with such knowledge, we hope that researchers within the community will develop an understanding and appreciation of the editorial decisions that will lead to acceptance and rejection of papers, and to decisions about which papers may not be sent out for peer review as they don’t fit the goals of the journal (in some such cases, they can be rapidly forwarded to another journal in the Royal Society of Chemistry portfolio for further consideration). Scientific Editors, who are all active researchers in the field, will work closely with the Editorial team to ensure articles meet the stringent criteria required for publication in the journal.

• Materials Horizons is committed to having an editorial process that is fair, transparent and free of bias, while preserving the integrity of the anonymity of the peer review process.

• Materials Horizons will maintain the highest scientific standards in terms of ensuring the materials within the journal are well characterized, that all conclusions are rigorously supported by data that has been collected and whose reproducibility and degree of error have been demonstrated.

• Materials Horizons seeks to strongly emphasize first reports of observations that provide new conceptual insights in the science of materials. In this regard, the scope of Materials Horizons broadly covers all aspects of the field of materials, but the journal is very much focused on the conceptual advances, more than technological improvements. Thus, submissions that report new records for the performance of materials without some significant paradigm shift are not likely to be reviewed, unless the advance in properties on its own is sufficiently great to dramatically shift the field.

• Materials Horizons seeks to publish very concise papers, but recognizes that our field is intrinsically complex and multidisciplinary. For this reason our Communication guidelines call for papers to be 3 pages or less, however it is not our policy that papers must be 3 pages or less. Authors are expected to be concise and to utilize the electronic supplementary information section efficiently, but there is latitude within the editorial policy for longer Communications to be published as warranted.

• A certain amount of speculation will be considered acceptable within papers provided that it is clearly stated as such, distinguished from conclusions based upon data, and that it does not make over-reaching statements about the scientific and technological implications of the work. Put more simply, Materials Horizons seeks to minimize hype.

• The goal of the journal is to maximize its impact, which is distinct from its impact factor. In maximizing impact, we fully expect Materials Horizons will have a high impact factor, but we recognize that historically some of the most important work in science requires time to be fully absorbed and appreciated by the community, and this does not always happen in 24 months or less. Thus we encourage people to challenge the journal with papers that are “ahead of their time”.

Regardless of whether papers are submitted from academic, industrial or government laboratories, authors are strongly encouraged to think about the papers being a vehicle to educate and not simply report information to the community. Thus, we discourage conclusion sections which are simply reiterations of the key results, and require that the conclusions are used rather to detail the insights derived from the work. In a similar manner, Materials Horizons has both Mini-Reviews and Reviews, the guidelines for which can be found on the journal website. Both types of Materials Horizons reviews mean to provide insightful analysis of the work described and not merely to serve as a repository for information gathered from many places. Specifically, we seek to avoid papers that merely provide information as opposed to insight; authors are encouraged to think clearly about the “take home messages” of their papers.

In addition to Communications, Mini-Reviews and Reviews, Materials Horizons will have “Focus Articles”. These articles will largely take the form of editorials and concept pieces (typically invited), to explain or clarify topics in materials. In this regard, our goal is for Materials Horizons to be an educational resource for researchers of all levels.

We hope that we have presented a clear vision what we are trying to create with the launch of Materials Horizons. Ultimately the success and impact of this journal lie in the hands of you the authors, the readers and the reviewers. The editorial team at Materials Horizons is fully committed to make Materials Horizons the premier research and educational journal for this exciting discipline, and we look forward to working with you, and listening to you to make this vision a reality.

Seth & Liz

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Publishing is delighted to announce Materials Horizons, a new peer-reviewed journal for first reports of exceptional significance across the breadth of materials research.

Announcing the launch, James Milne, Executive Director of RSC Publishing, said: “Materials science is an expansive and rapidly evolving field of real relevance to the chemical sciences. Only last week, the UK Science Minister, David Willetts, announced £73 million of investment for new facilities and equipment to support research in advanced materials in the UK.

We are delighted to support the breadth of the global materials research community with this new journal. Materials Horizons will be a world class journal characterised by the quality, ease and speed of publication, and innovative technology for which RSC Publishing is renowned. As a not-for-profit publisher, this new addition to our portfolio will also go towards facilitating the RSC’s aim to advance the chemical sciences for the benefit of society.”

The journal will open for submissions in April 2013 and the first issue will be published in late 2013.

 
Materials Horizons will be:

• High impact – only publishing the most novel and exciting advances

• A leader – the Editorial Board, led by Seth Marder (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA), will drive scientific development, with Scientific Editors helping to maintain scientific standards

• Interdisciplinary – showcasing the best research at the cutting-edge interface of materials science with chemistry, physics, biology and engineering

• Internationally visible – free access to all content published during 2014 and 2015, guaranteeing maximum exposure

• Rapid – speedy reviewing and publication in as little as a day after acceptance with our Accepted Manuscript option

Seth Marder, Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, has been appointed Editorial Board Chair of the new journal. ”It is a very exciting opportunity for me to work with the team at the RSC to help launch Materials Horizons, a new kind of society journal geared to rapid publication of truly top calibre, first reports of materials research broadly defined,” he says. ”Importantly, while published by a chemical society, the journal will seek to serve the broader materials community, by welcoming papers that cover the gamut of materials research, providing a forum for editorials on the status and future of materials research, and content geared specifically to educating and engaging younger researchers in the field.  With this, we hope to make Materials Horizons an indispensable resource for all researchers in the materials community.”

Further details will be released over the coming weeks – make sure you don’t miss out by registering your details to receive the regular Materials Horizons newsletter.

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