Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B & C – a fantastic start to a new era!

This editorial marks the end of the first year of the publication of Journal of Material Chemistry as a family of three separate titles, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B & C, and what an exciting and enjoyable year it has been!

For us, there have been several highlights across all three journals this year. We have significantly increased our team of Associate Editors handling papers. For Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Michael Chabinyc, Mohamed Eddaoudi, Yan Li, Zhiqun Lin, Xiong Wen (David) Lou, Christine Luscombe, Shizhang Qiao and Stephen Skinner have been appointed (Fig. 1); for Journal of Materials Chemistry B, Guoping Chen, Jeroen Cornelissen, Dal-Hee Min, Marc in het Panhuis and Zhengzhong Shao have been appointed (Fig. 2); and for Journal of Materials Chemistry C, Gitti Frey, Justin Holmes, Malika Jeffries-EL, Natalie Stingelin, Wai-Yeung Wong and Xiaowei Zhan have been appointed (Fig. 3). These appointments offer our authors further choices about whether their paper is handled by a professional editor in our Editorial Office or one of our Associate Editors. The appointments aim to give representation to the scope of each journal by the expertise of each of the Associate Editors. If you would like to suggest your next submission to Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B or C is handled by one of our Associate Editors, please choose their editorial office during the submission process.

Fig. 1 From left to right Michael Chabinyc, Mohamed Eddaoudi, Yan Li, Zhiqun Lin, Xiong Wen (David) Lou, Christine Luscombe, Shizhang Qiao and Stephen Skinner.

Fig. 2 From left to right Guoping Chen, Jeroen Cornelissen, Dal-Hee Min, Marc in het Panhuis and Zhengzhong Shao.

Fig. 3 From left to right Gitti Frey, Justin Holmes, Malika Jeffries-EL, Natalie Stingelin, Wai-Yeung Wong and Xiaowei Zhan.

We published several topical themed issues throughout 2013, listed in Table 1. We would like to thank everyone who contributed to one of these issues and a particular thank you to each of the guest editors who put their efforts into making these a success. We hope you enjoy reading them and look out for our 2014 themed issues on energy storage and conversion, nanoscale biomaterials and flexible electronics. Also, look out for our 2014 emerging investigators themed issues, which will highlight the very best work from materials chemists in the early stages of their independent career.

Table 1 2013 themed issues

Journal	Issue number	Themed issue	Guest editor(s)
J. Mater. Chem. A	33	Porous carbon materials	Professors An-Hui Lu (Dalian University of Technology, China) and Sheng Dai (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA)
J. Mater. Chem. B	31	Carbon bioelectronics	Professors Mohammad Reza Abidian (Pennsylvania State University, USA), Andrew T. S. Wee (National University of Singapore, Singapore) and George G. Malliaras (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint Etienne, France)
J. Mater. Chem. B	39	Nanoparticles in biology	Professors Dan Peer (Tel Aviv University, Israel), Nathan Gianneschi (University of California, San Diego, USA) and Dan Luo (Cornell University, USA)
J. Mater. Chem. C	38	The chemistry of photonic crystals and metamaterials	Professors Yadong Yin (University of California, Riverside, USA) and Jianping Ge (East China Normal University, Shanghai, China)
J. Mater. Chem. C	46	Fabrication technology of nanomaterials	Professors Fabio Biscarini (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy) and Massimiliano Cavallini (Institute for nanostructured materials CNR, Bologna, Italy)

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Another highlight of 2013 was the presentation of the 2013 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship to Professor Xinliang Feng (Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany). This Lectureship is awarded to a researcher at the earlier stages of their scientific career, typically within 10 years of attaining their doctorate or equivalent degree. The Journal of Materials Chemistry Executive Editorial Board chose Professor Feng in recognition of the contribution he has made to the materials chemistry field, in particular, the synthesis of graphene materials, novel conjugated oligomers and polymers for applications in organic electronic devices and functional nanomaterials for optoelectronics. Look out for the call for nominations for the 2014 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship in January 2014.

There is also much to look forward to for the year ahead, the Journal of Materials Chemistry family continues to attract more and higher quality papers and a larger readership. We will be attending a number of conferences throughout the year so look out for us! Keep up-to-date with news on themed issues, hot papers, Editorial and Advisory Board updates and all the journal news by following our blog (blogs.rsc.org/jm), the journal Facebook page (search for ‘Journal of Materials Chemistry’ on Facebook) or on Twitter where our handle is @JMaterChem.

We would like to thank all of you who contribute to making Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B & C a success, from our authors, readers and referees, to our Editorial and Advisory Board members and our team in the Editorial Office.

Dongyuan Zhao, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Materials Chemistry; Hiroshi Imahori, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Materials Chemistry A; Christine Schmidt, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Materials Chemistry B; Peter Skabara, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Materials Chemistry C; Liz Dunn, Managing Editor, Journal of Materials Chemistry; Sam Keltie, Deputy Editor, Journal of Materials Chemistry

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