15 years of Green Chemistry

The first issue of Green Chemistry was published in January 1999; as we enter January 2014 we are celebrating the completion of 15 years of publication. Over these 15 years articles published in the Journal have recorded the evolving priorities in green chemistry research. To mark this significant milestone we invited Chairs of the Editorial Board and Scientific Editors for their views on the area of green chemistry, and the changes they have seen since the Journal was launched. The result is a wonderfully thought-provoking Editorial which is published in this issue and we hope you enjoy reading.

To accompany this Editorial, and to further celebrate ‘15 years of Green Chemistry’ we are publishing a web collection covering topics of current importance in green chemistry, from those authors who have had the most highly cited articles from each of the past 15 years. The collection is online now and contains six contributions (year they represent in brackets) from founding Editors James Clark (2000) and Roger Sheldon (2005) as well as Arno Behr (2008), Buxing Han (2009), Avelino Corma (2011) and Charlotte Wiles and Paul Watts (2012) – look out for further contributions from the authors representing each of the other years in Green Chemistry's 15 years of publication. The collection can be accessed online at http://rsc.li/gc-15-years.

Editorial Board news

At the end of 2013 Karl Anker Jørgensen finished his term on the Editorial Board and we would like to thank him for his support as a member of the Board, helping to develop the Journal.

We are delighted to announce that from the beginning of 2014 Philip Jessop from Queen's University, Ontario, Canada, will be joining the Editorial Board. We welcome Professor Jessop to the Green Chemistry team and look forward to working with him.

From December 2013 Buxing Han took on the position of Associate Editor, handling manuscripts for the Journal in the research areas of green solvents, CO₂ and biomass conversion. Professor Han has been a long-standing member of the Editorial Board and a great supporter of the Journal, so we were delighted when he agreed to take on this new role. When submitting your papers to the Journal you can choose whom you would like to handle your submission by selecting the appropriate Editorial Office as part of the submission process.

Reviewing process

From 2014 we are introducing revised guidelines for referees and authors and a new referee report form. The guidelines highlight the high novelty, impact and scientific integrity required for publication in the Journal, including the requirement for thorough characterisation of compounds and materials in line with the respective sub-disciplines. The referee report form has further questions relating to advancing sustainable chemistry. These changes have been introduced further to discussions with members of the green chemistry community and refined by the Editorial Board. We hope that they will be welcomed by both Green Chemistry reviewers and authors.

We would like to thank you for your continued support of Green Chemistry and if you have any comments on the Journal or the changes we are introducing we would be very pleased to hear from you.

Wishing you all a very successful 2014.

Walter Leitner (Chair of the Editorial Board) & Sarah Ruthven (Editor)

E-mail: Green-rsc@rsc.org

News from the Royal Society of Chemistry

When our chief executive Robert Parker revealed a new vision and strategy for the Royal Society of Chemistry last year, it was the right time to cast a critical eye over our brand. As an organisation we have ambitious goals and to reach them we need to build a greater awareness of the Royal Society of Chemistry. We undertook large scale research to help us understand how we could develop our brand, communicating with 7000+ individuals from our community. You may have taken part in this research: through our online survey, one of the focus groups or a telephone interview? This research helped us to clearly define how we can build on our strengths to advance excellence in the chemical sciences through our messaging and logo. Talking about our new logo…we feel it reflects the dynamic creativity of chemistry, it's about collaboration and community, becoming stronger as it builds and overlaps. What do you think? The way our articles look has also changed to reflect the new brand, make an impact and most importantly make it easier for you to read and navigate. We'd love to hear your feedback, please share your thoughts with us E-mail: brand@rsc.org

From this year we are pleased to be able to offer free colour for all images and figures in all of the Royal Society of Chemistry journals, both in print and online.

We believe this will further improve the efficiency of our submission, editing and publication processes, and enhance the readers’ experience as well.

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