We’re pleased to be able to share with you the first full issue of RSC Chemical Biology, our new, gold open access journal showcasing agenda-setting research of interest to the broad chemical biology community. Read issue 1 now
As the first Royal Society of Chemistry journal to offer transparent peer review, authors also have the option to publish reviewers’ comments, the editor’s decision letter, and authors’ response alongside the article. It’s part of our commitment to make research and decision-making more open, robust and accessible.
All papers published in the journal will always be free to access. We are waiving article processing charges for the first two years, so until mid-2022 the journal will be completely free to publish in for authors, as well as free to read.
We hope you enjoy reading the exciting research in our first issue! Keep up with all things chembio: sign up for alerts or follow us on Twitter @rsc_chembio
Comments Off on RSC Chemical Biology: first issue out now
We want to make sure that our journals deliver rigorous and fair peer review and we wouldn’t be able to achieve that commitment without the amazing contribution of our reviewers.
In 2019, nearly 50,000 individual reviewers provided a review for one or more of our journals. Every one of them is contributing to the efforts of our community to advance excellence in the chemical sciences. Our community is truly a global one, with reviewers coming from over 100 different countries.
We want to celebrate some of the individuals who’ve made significant contributions to our journals by reviewing for us over the last 12 months, by publishing a list of Outstanding Reviewers for each of our journals. The lists will be published on each journal blog and each journal will publish a special Editorial. Each Outstanding Reviewer will also receive a certificate to give recognition for their significant contribution. Please check the list as below to find the outstanding reviewer of each journal.
While it’s not possible to list everyone, we would like to say a big thank you to all of the reviewers that have supported our journals. We would also like to thank all our journal Editorial and Advisory Boards and the chemical community for their continued support as authors, reviewers and readers.
Congratulations to all the Outstanding Reviewers in 2019!
If you would like to become a reviewer for any of our journals, just contact the journal by email with details of your research interests and an up-to-date CV or résumé. You can find more details in our author and reviewer resource centre.
The #RSCPoster Twitter Conference is an online event held entirely over Twitter to bring members of the scientific research community together to share their research, network and engage in scientific debate.
Taking place for 24 hours starting at 12:00 UTC, 3 March, the 2020 edition of #RSCPoster was incredible.
In it’s sixth year, #RSCPoster showcased fantastic posters from all corners of the globe, stimulating thousands of tweets of discussion across our chemical community. The event boasted a full compliment of subject categories spanning the chemical sciences and related fields, supported by 38 passionate Subject Chairs and 24 dedicated General Committee members based across the globe (find out who they were in this blog post).
Reaching throughout the twitter chemical sciences community and beyond, #RSCPoster 2020 involved:
24 hours and 12 subject categories
795 registered poster presenters from 59 countries
Audience participation prize (#RSCPoster that receives the most retweets)
Announcing the 2021 #RSCPoster Twitter Conference:
Save the date – the 2021 #RSCPoster Twitter Conference will be held on 2 March 2021 beginning 12:00 UTC for 24h. More information to be announced soon!
Links, News, Media and Previous #RSCPoster Events:
2020 #RSCPoster:
RSC News winners announcement: here
RSC News Event highlights: here
2020 Registration Event page: here
RSC News Article – one month to go: here
2020 Blog homepage: here
2019 #RSCPoster:
Winners and summary announcement: here
2019 homepage: here
RSC News Event highlights: here
RSC News winners announcement: here
Chemistry World Story: here
2018 #RSCPoster:
Winners and summary announcement:here
2018 homepage: here
2017 #RSCPoster:
Winners and summary announcement:here
2017 homepage: here
The #RSCPoster Twitter Conference is an online event held entirely over Twitter to bring members of the scientific research community together to share their research, network and engage in scientific debate.
@armando_carlone Armando Carlone (Università degli Studi dell’Aquila) @pauldauenhauer Paul J. Dauenhauer (University of Minnesota) @garden_jenni Jennifer Garden (University of Edinburgh) @RSC_ACG Applied Catalysis Group (RSC Interest Group)
@clairemcd_chemClaire McDonnell (Technological University Dublin) @emily_seeber Emily Seeber (Bedales School and University of Oxford) @petertabichi Peter Tabichi (Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School) @doc_kristy Kristy Turner (University of Manchester)
@DRMacFarlane Doug Macfarlane (Monash University) @Robert_palgrave Robert Palgrave (University College London) @KWilson1971 Karen Wilson (RMIT University Melbourne)
@Vy_Dong_Group Vy Dong (University of California Irvine) @TheNelsonGroup David Nelson (University of Strathclyde) @RamacharyDB D B Ramachary (University of Hyderabad)
@laura_mckemmish Laura McKemmish (University of New South Wales) @jesswade Jess Wade (Imperial College London) @DrummerBoy2112 Brian Wagner (University of Prince Edward Island)
Do I need to check the copyright and permissions needed for figures or any other parts of my #RSCPoster which have already been published?
Yes. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to copy their work and to issue copies of their work to the public, and it is an infringement for anyone else to do so without the copyright owner’s permission. If you are reproducing material contained in a Royal Society of Chemistry publication (journal articles, book or book chapters) you may do so providing that you fully acknowledge the original Royal Society of Chemistry publication and include a link back to it. If you wish to include material that has been published by another publisher, you will need to check how the publisher/copyright owner of the third party material wishes to receive permission requests. Information on this can be found on our Permission Requests page at http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/copyright/permission-requests.asp under “Use of third party material in our publications”.
If I include unpublished work in my #RSCPoster, will I still be able to publish this in a peer-reviewed journal afterwards?
Subject to the usual conditions outlined in the License to Publish, being a part of the Twitter conference will not prevent you using some of the information included in your poster as part of an article in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal. Please note this policy varies by publisher and if you intend to submit your research for publication elsewhere after the event, you should check the individual policy for that journal and publisher.
What size/format should my #RSCPoster be?
You can choose any dimensions for your #RSCPoster, the important thing is that the text and figures are clear for people to read and understand. Using Microsoft PowerPoint, we found a text size of between 12-16 were clear to read when saving an A4 slide as a JPEG and uploading to Twitter. Using an A0 template, the text needed to be between 50 and 60 to be legible. You can use any software you like to create your poster, as long as the image you upload is clear for others to read. We recommend testing your poster on Twitter before the conference to make sure you are happy with your image. Check out this blog post by Zen Faulkes for some top tips for making posters with Twitter in mind: http://betterposters.blogspot.com/2019/02/top-tips-for-twitter-posters.html
How can I maximise the accessibility of my #RSCPoster?
There are a number of resources available to increase the accessibility of your #RSCPoster to different user groups! Below are some suggestions and links to resources:
When you Tweet images you have the option to compose a description of the images so the content is accessible to people who are visually impaired. Please see https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/picture-descriptions for more information on how to do this. The image descriptions have a character limit so we suggest including the title in this image description, and put further details or explanation about the poster content as a thread in the comments.
If you want to test how accessible your #RSCPoster is to people with different types of colour blindness, this website provides a colour blindness simulator.
Uploading a link to a PDF of your poster, alongside your image, may enable the use of screen readers for the visually impaired
We encourage you to capitalise words in hashtags, use simple language and explain any acronyms, to help increase accessibility to non-native English speakers and those from a different or non-scientific background
With thanks to our 2020 Sponsors:
Lead Sponsor:
Royal Society of Chemistry Sponsors:
Announcing the 2021 #RSCPoster Twitter Conference:
Save the date – the 2021 #RSCPoster Twitter Conference will be held on 2 March 2021 beginning 12:00 UTC for 24h. More information to be announced soon!
News, Media and Previous #RSCPoster Events:
2020 #RSCPoster:
Wrap-up and Winners: here
2020 Registration Event page: here
RSC News Article – one month to go: here
2020 Blog homepage: here
2019 #RSCPoster:
Winners and summary announcement: here
2019 homepage: here
RSC News Event highlights: here
RSC News winners announcement: here
Chemistry World Story: here
2018 #RSCPoster:
Winners and summary announcement:here
2018 homepage: here
2017 #RSCPoster:
Winners and summary announcement:here
2017 homepage: here
The #RSCPoster Twitter Conference is an online event held entirely over Twitter to bring members of the scientific research community together to share their research, network and engage in scientific debate.
The 2019 edition of #RSCPoster was the biggest and best yet, taking place for 24 hours starting at 09:00 AM GMT, 5 March 2019. In it’s fifth year, #RSCPoster boasted a full compliment of subject categories spanning the chemical sciences and related fields, supported by 33 passionate Subject Chairs and 20 dedicated General Committee members (find out who they were in this blog post).
Reaching throughout the twitter chemical sciences community and beyond, #RSCPoster 2019 involved:
Over 500 registered poster delegates
3186 Contributors
9759 Tweets
Audience of over 2 million
14 million total impressions
Find out more about the 2019 #RSCPoster event in the lead-up blog post: here, and see some highlights from the day: here.
2019 #RSCPoster Winners:
With thanks to our committee members, we are now delighted to announce the 2019 #RSCPoster winners as below. Please click on the posters to see the original tweet.
The #RSCPoster Twitter Conference is an online event held entirely over Twitter to bring members of the scientific research community together to share their research, network and engage in scientific debate.
We are excited to announce that the 2019 event will be held: Tuesday 5 March 2019, 09:00 GMT – Wednesday 6 March 2019, 09:00 GMT.
Read more about #RSCPoster 2019 and take a look at the winning posters:
Register to submit a poster in advance – click here and register via the RSC Events page now
Tweet your poster image with a title, #RSCPoster and relevant subject hashtag(s) – during the 24h conference beginning 5 March 2019, 09:00 GMT
Discuss and engage – throughout the 24h conference make sure to answer the questions from the community, committee and comment on other #RSCPosters
Check out this video tutorial from Edward Randviir (Manchester Metropolitan University, @EdwardRandviir) explaining how to search for hashtags in Twitter and how to take part!
and here: https://twitter.com/EdwardRandviir/status/1102956739887054850
Top tips for making a poster specifically for Twitter are available on the BetterPosters blog, written by Zen Faulkes (@DoctorZen).
Win a prize:
Win cash prizes if your #RSCPoster and presentation is deemed best by the 2019 subject chairs.
Audience participation prize will be awarded to the poster that receives the most retweets. The lucky winner will receive a chemistry-themed board game: Compounded. Compounded is a game where players take on the roles of lab managers, hastily competing to make compounds before they are completed by others or destroyed in an explosion… With thanks to Dr Sam Illingworth (Manchester Metrapolitan University) for supporting this prize.
Thanks to our wonderful sponsors this year who are supporting cash prizes:
Jason Hein, The University of British Columbia Tanja Junkers, Monash University Tim Noël, Eindhoven University of Technology
@procrastiprof
@polymerreaction
@NoelGroupTUE
2019 #RSCPoster General Committee:
Damien Arrigan, Curtin University
@arri_aus
Zoe Ayres, Hach
@zjayres
James Batteas, Texas A&M University
@jamesbatteas
Gonçalo Bernardes, University of Cambridge
@gbernardes_chem
Holly Butler, University of Strathclyde
@HollehButler
Malika Jeffries-El, Boston University
@Chem_Diva
Neil Keddie, University of St Andrews
@theyakman
Simon Lancaster University of East Anglia
@S_J_Lancaster
Simon Lewis, Curtin University
@SimonWLewis
Jennifer Love, The University of British Columbia
@JenniferLoveUBC
Nicholas Marshall, USC Aiken
@ChemImprov
Jean-Francois Masson, University of Montreal
@Masson_chem
Claire Murray, Diamond Light Source
@drclairemurray
Warren Piers, University of Calgary
@Wpiers1
Dino Spagnoli, University of Western Australia
@dino_spagnoli
Fraser Stoddart, Northwestern University
@sirfrasersays
Nick Stone, Univeristy of Exeter
@profnickstone
M. Eugenio Vázquez, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
@ChemBioUSC
Renee Webster, Monash University
@reneewebs
Jason Woolford, Royal Society of Chemistry
@RealTimeChem
See information from previous events here or see the previous events on Twitter via the subject hashtag links above or here.
In the spirit of the recent partnership between the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute we are delighted to announce the RACI will be supporting #RSCPoster by awarding prizes to the best posters presented by Aussie chemists.
Just add the hashtag #ozchem to be in with a chance of winning a year’s free RACI membership and a copy of A Century of Bonds!
A local scientific committee will independently judge the best #ozchem poster and presentation
Associate Professor Jack Clegg, University of Queensland (@JackKClegg)
Professor Dianne Jolley, (@DrDianneJolley), together with Dr Darren Koppel, (@DarrenKoppel), both University of Technology Sydney
Professor Anthony O’Mullane, Queensland University of Technology (@AOMullane_EChem)
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to check the copyright and permissions needed for figures or any other parts of my poster which have already been published?
Yes. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to copy their work and to issue copies of their work to the public, and it is an infringement for anyone else to do so without the copyright owner’s permission. If you are reproducing material contained in a Royal Society of Chemistry publication (journal articles, book or book chapters) you may do so providing that you fully acknowledge the original Royal Society of Chemistry publication and include a link back to it. If you wish to include material that has been published by another publisher, you will need to check how the publisher/copyright owner of the third party material wishes to receive permission requests. Information on this can be found on our Permission Requests page at http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/copyright/permission-requests.asp under “Use of third party material in our publications”.
If I include unpublished work in my poster, will I still be able to publish this in a peer-reviewed journal afterwards?
Subject to the usual conditions outlined in the License to Publish, being a part of the Twitter conference will not prevent you using some of the information included in your poster as part of an article in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal. Please note this policy varies by publisher and if you intend to submit your research for publication elsewhere after the event, you should check the individual policy for that journal and publisher.
What size/format should my poster be?
You can choose any dimensions for your poster, the important thing is that the text and figures are clear for people to read and understand. Using Microsoft PowerPoint, we found a text size of between 12-16 were clear to read when saving an A4 slide as a JPEG and uploading to Twitter. Using an A0 template, the text needed to be between 50 and 60 to be legible. You can use any software you like to create your poster, as long as the image you upload is clear for others to read. We recommend testing your poster on Twitter before the conference to make sure you are happy with your image. Check out this blog post by Zen Faulkes for some top tips for making posters with Twitter in mind: http://betterposters.blogspot.com/2019/02/top-tips-for-twitter-posters.html
Please don’t get carried away and use Twitter-bots. We want everyone to actively participate and engage in discussions to get the most out of the event.
Diverse teams produce better research. There are demonstrable benefits to having a wide range of viewpoints and experiences, whether in academia or industry, and there’s a moral responsibility for us to make our community a place where anyone can reach their full potential.
In our report, the Diversity landscape of the chemical sciences, published earlier this year, we compiled some of the available evidence for the current state of diversity in the Chemical Sciences. This data gathering has given us a picture that allows us to identify areas of the most need, set intelligent targets for our future activities, and benchmark our future progress from a defined starting point. The report touched on issues of inclusivity in terms of ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background, and we are
However, retention of women emerged as the biggest single loss of talent from our community. At each stage of progression, women are leaving the sector, a massive loss of talent and economic potential. In academia, at undergraduate level, 44% of students are female. This drops to 39% of postgraduate students, and plummets to a mere 9% among chemistry professors.
This is a systemic failure – with a wide range of factors including conscious and unconscious bias in hiring and progression committees, and a working environment that is hostile to all but disproportionately affects women. There’s also a difference in remuneration. The difference in median pay between men and women is £13,000, an increase since 2015. The pay gap increases over the course of women’s careers, with older respondents reporting a greater gap than those at the beginning of their careers.
Scientific publishing, as an inherent part of academic life, also plays a huge role in this problem. As the publisher of a journals portfolio including 45 peer-reviewed journals the Royal Society of Chemistry is ideally situated not only to contribute data to the discussion but also to take action to tackle the issues that are identified. By harnessing the authorship and citation data associated with almost 70,000 published, peer-reviewed articles we showed that papers by female corresponding authors received significantly fewer citations than those authored by men. We also saw a negative correlation between the impact factor of a journal and the number of submissions by women, suggesting that female corresponding authors are discouraged from putting their work forward for consideration by top journals.
As part of our actions to address this imbalance we are carefully monitoring all new editorial board appointments as well as our ongoing commissioning efforts to identify and remove potential sources of bias. The goal of these efforts is not to employ positive discrimination, but instead to better enable ourselves and our community to recognise the many talented women already working in the Chemical Sciences and hence encourage further progress towards equity. It is with this in mind that we are proud to launch our new themed collection:
Celebrating Excellence in Research: 100 Women of Chemistry is a collection of high quality papers from across the RSC Publishing portfolio. As the name of the collection suggests, the excellence comes first – all papers included have previously been judged to be of outstanding quality by the reviewers, editors, or readers.
In light of the problems with women’s progression and retention, we decided to focus on female group leaders and corresponding authors – both to celebrate their own achievements in the field and to act as an inspiration for early career researchers and students within the community. An initial nomination stage by our journal editorial teams or editorial board members identified leaders in their respective fields. This resulted in a considerable number of excellent authors from whom 100 papers were then chosen as examples of exceptional research. We intend to represent the diversity of the publishing landscape, including researchers from 23 countries and at all stages of an independent career.
We have selected 100 papers but could have selected many more. The number 100 also has special significance here in the UK, where we are currently celebrating Vote 100 – the centenary of the first women in the UK to obtain the vote. The number proved restrictive, and as part of our ongoing commitment to equality and diversity, we will be following this up with subjects-specific collections in the months to come, but for now, we invite you to read this collection and Celebrate Excellence in Research with us.
Comments Off on Announcing a themed collection – Celebrating Excellence in Research: 100 Women of Chemistry
The new place to publish your energy and fuels research
Here at the Royal Society of Chemistry, we are justifiably proud of our reputation for high quality publications in energy science. So we are delighted to announce the expansion of our energy portfolio with the launch of new journal Sustainable Energy & Fuels.
Complementing our leading titles Energy & Environmental Science and Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Sustainable Energy & Fuels will publish interdisciplinary research that contributes to the development of sustainable energy technologies, with a particular emphasis on new and next-generation technologies.
An essential resource for energy researchers, Sustainable Energy & Fuels cuts across major disciplines – materials science, physics, chemistry, engineering and biology – covering evolving and emerging areas such as:
• bioenergy including biofuels, biomass conversion and fuels from living organisms
• carbon capture, storage and utilisation
• energy conversion including fuel cells, piezoelectrics and thermoelectrics
• energy storage including batteries and supercapacitors
• hydrogen production, storage and distribution
• new technologies for energy efficiency including magnetocalorics, lighting and heating
• nuclear power
• solar energy including solar photovoltaics and solar fuels
• sustainable fossil and alternative fuels
Guided by Editor-in-Chief Professor James Durrant (Imperial College London and Swansea University, UK), Sustainable Energy & Fuels will publish monthly issues containing a mix of Communications, Full papers and Reviews. Look out for the first issue online in spring 2017, with advance articles published from December 2016.
We’ll be sharing more news soon – including when Sustainable Energy & Fuels opens for submissions. With all content published in 2017 and 2018 free to access upon registration, publishing your research in these high profile first issues offers you maximum exposure for your work.
As ever, we’ve been listening to what you need and have made changes to reflect this, as well as some other exciting developments.
What we haven’t changed is our approach. Every product has been carefully designed to provide easily accessible, high quality information at prices that will work with the tightest of budgets. And because all of our profits are re-invested, anything purchased from us will help to support the talent, information and ideas that lead to great advances in science.
Here’s what you need to know this year:
Open access
We’re doing everything we can to help researchers fulfil their Open Access requirements. Chemical Science is now a Gold Open Access journal, with no Open Access Author publishing fees for two years. This means it’s free to read, and free to publish in.
Flexible options
We’ve developed our eBook Pick & Choose model to improve the flexibility of our books offering. For a minimum spend of £1,000 ($1,500), libraries can take their pick of key chemical science titles from our entire eBook portfolio.
Growing choice
There is a lot to look forward to in 2016, including the launch of new journals. Nanoscale Horizons and Reaction Chemistry & Engineeringare the latest additions to the collection, both available free to subscribers until the end of 2017.
We’re also expanding our eBook collection, with over 70 new titles on the way this year.
Recognised quality
In 2014, we published over 36,200 articles. That’s a 398% increase compared with 2008’s figure. 87 countries contribute to our content ensuring a truly global perspective.
And in the recently published 2014 Journal Citation Reports®, 70% of our journals had an increase in Impact Factor*.
Always good value
We will always do our best to create a package that includes products you need at a price to suit your budget. Our cost per article download has fallen 2.68% since 2014 (that’s 34% from 2011 to 2015).
If you would like to discuss your current subscriptions, or you have any questions, please contact us.
*Impact Factor data based on 2014 Journal Citation Reports (Thomson Reuters, June 2015)
Introducing new journal Reaction Chemistry & Engineering
Launching in 2016, the latest title in our journal portfolio will publish high-impact research at the interface of chemical engineering and chemistry.
Reaction Chemistry & Engineering
Reaction Chemistry & Engineering will report cutting-edge research into all aspects of making molecules for the benefit of fundamental research, applied processes and wider society.
From fundamental, molecular level chemistry to large scale chemical production, Reaction Chemistry & Engineering brings together communities of chemists and chemical engineers working to ensure the crucial role of reaction chemistry in today’s world.
The journal’s focused mission encompasses a broad range of topic areas, including experimental, theoretical and modelling aspects in:
new reactions and reaction optimisation;
reaction pathways and design;
reaction mechanism and kinetics;
reaction analysis and monitoring;
catalysis and catalytic reaction engineering;
multiphase and reacting flows;
emerging reactor technologies;
sustainable reaction engineering.
Papers that consider multiple scales are particularly encouraged.
Klavs Jensen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) will take the role of Editorial Board Chair for Reaction Chemistry & Engineering, assisted by Scientific Editor Saif Khan (National University of Singapore); so you can be sure your work is in safe hands.
Why publish with us?
At the Royal Society of Chemistry, we aim high. And our impressive journal portfolio and well-deserved reputation for innovative publishing of exceptional quality are testament to the fact that we succeed.
We’ve launched journals across the breadth of the chemical sciences, and we know that high-impact research needs high visibility. That’s why all content published in Reaction Chemistry & Engineering in 2016 and 2017 will be free to access upon registration – offering authors maximum exposure for their work.
Submit your work now
Reaction Chemistry & Engineering is now accepting submissions for its first issue in 2016. Submit your work now for your chance to be included.