New Talent: Europe

When the Editorial board of Dalton Transactions decided to launch the “New talent” series in 2010, a success story started. These issues are unique since they are devoted to promising young scientists in the early stage of their careers. The issue published in 2010 was open to researchers from around the globe, while the issues in 2011 and 2012 put a more regional spotlight on Asia and the Americas. All Guest Editors have so far done a superb job in identifying “rising-stars” in their fields and also in assembling an excellent selection of various research topics covering all fields of current inorganic chemistry.

So we felt honoured, but also excited, when the Editor of Dalton Transactions approached us with the suggestion to act as Guest Editors for the “New talent: Europe” issue. European countries have a long and strong tradition in inorganic chemistry, but one might wonder how the future will look. Can Europe still compete financially and scientifically with the rapidly emerging Asian countries and the Americas, especially the USA? Naturally, we believe that it will stay competitive and that our young talents will have the answers to society's pressing questions. European chemistry is also interdisciplinary and initiatives to foster trans-European collaborations are explicitly encouraged by the European Union and national funding agencies. Furthermore, a particular European strength has always been curiosity driven, blue-skies research, which is indispensable for the advancement of science in general.

With this in mind, contributors were selected based on a broad range of topics such as medicinal inorganic chemistry, catalysis, material sciences and more fundamental questions associated with the structure–reactivity relationship in new compounds. We are greatly indebted to all the young inorganic chemists across Europe who accepted our invitation and contributed to this “New talent: Europe”.

We hope that you enjoy this themed issue with more than 40 contributions from 11 European countries, and we express our gratitude to Dr Jamie Humphrey of Dalton Transactions for providing us with this opportunity and to Dr Fiona McKenzie and Dr Helen Lunn from the Dalton Transactions Editorial Office for supporting us in this endeavour.

---