JAAS celebrates 30 years of analytical atomic spectrometry
Happy New Year and welcome to Issue 1, 2015 of JAAS. We have seen some excellent submissions to the journal during 2014 and JAAS continues to be the leading primary research journal in the field of atomic spectrometry, receiving an impact factor of 3.396 and an immediacy index of 0.723 (2013 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters)). The increase in impact factor highlights the high quality research being carried out by our authors, along with the diligence and hard work of our reviewers and Board members. Thank you to all who have contributed to JAAS, the home of innovative research on the fundamental theory and application of atomic spectrometry techniques. We appreciate your hard work and dedication to the journal and look forward to building on the successes during 2015 and beyond.This year marks the 30th anniversary of the journal and in celebration of this momentous milestone, we have some exciting announcements. These include the publication of our 30th Anniversary themed issue, due to be published at the beginning of 2016. The issue is being guest edited by previous JAAS Chairs Les Ebdon, Barry Sharp, Joe Caruso, Gary Hieftje, Detlef Günther and the current Chair, Frank Vanhaecke. The issue will feature world-leading research across all areas of atomic spectrometry and will be a great way to recognise the evolution of both spectrometric research and the journal over the last 3 decades. We are also delighted to announce the launch of the JAAS Emerging Investigator Lectureship, designed to recognise and support emerging scientists in the atomic spectrometry community in the early stages of their independent career. The recipient will receive a contribution of up to £2000 to cover travel and accommodation costs to attend and present their work at a relevant high-profile international meeting. The Lectureship is open to all early career researchers working in the field of atomic spectrometry and nominations are open December 1st 2014 until March 1st 2015, look out for more information on the blog http://blogs.rsc.org/ja/.
We welcome Heidi Goenaga-Infante to the Editorial Board. Heidi is currently Principal Scientist and Team Leader of the Inorganic Analysis team within the S & T Division at LGC and has expertise in trace element speciation analysis, metallomics research, combined use of elemental and molecular mass spectrometry, size-based element fractionation and the characterisation of “speciated” reference materials and standards. We are delighted to have Heidi’s experience and knowledge in the team and excited to work with her over the coming years.
We would like to thank Joanna Szpunar, who retires from her position as Reviews Editor, for her hard work and dedication to the journal. Joanna made an excellent contribution to JAAS and coordinated a number of highly topical reviews during her time on the Editorial Board and will continue to be a part of the journal in her new capacity as an Advisory Board member. Shan Gao is also retiring from the Editorial Board. As Professor of Geochemistry at China University of Geosciences, his scientific expertise was an asset to JAAS and we thank him for his enthusiasm and commitment to the journal. We also wish to extend our thanks to Barry Sharp, a founding member of the JAAS Editorial Board, who after 30 years connected to the journal, has decided to retire from the Board. To read more about Barry's contribution to both science and the journal, see the Editorial by Les Ebdon (10.1039/c4ja90046d), which introduces Issue 1 2015 (this issue), which is entirely dedicated to Barry.
JAAS has published a number of excellent themed issues throughout 2014: The 2014 Young Analytical Scientists (YAS) issue, guest edited by Carsten Engelhard, highlights the work of outstanding emerging scientists; Geological applications of laser ablation, guest edited by Detlef Günther, features a mixture of both fundamental advances and exciting new applications; The Glow Discharge Spectroscopy issue, guest edited by Steven Ray, Jorge Pisonero, Peter Robinson and Cornel Venzago, provides papers from the 2nd International Glow Discharge Spectroscopy Symposium (IGDSS2014). There was also the joint online collection in collaboration with Metallomics on Novel Stable Isotopes in Health Sciences, guest edited by Ariel Anbar, Vincent Balter and Frank Vanhaecke. You can read all of these themed issues, along with ‘2013's top 25 most read JAAS articles’ and, soon, ‘2014's top 25 most read JAAS articles’ on the journal website http://rsc.li/1qFsFWh.
In 2015 look out for our upcoming themed issues, including this issue dedicated to Barry Sharp, and those devoted to Synchrotron Radiation in Art and Archaeology (featuring papers from SR2A 2014), Young Investigators in China (guest edited by Wei Hang), Field Flow Fractionation and Single Particle ICP MS for Nanomaterial Characterization (guest edited by Björn Meermann and Francisco Laborda), an issue following the 2015 European Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry, and the celebratory 30th Anniversary Issue which will be published early in 2016.
The Royal Society of Chemistry is happy to announce that its USA office is growing in size. Lauren Graham and Jenny Lee have been appointed as Assistant Editorial Development managers for North America, and will be helping Editorial Development Manager Jennifer Griffiths to strengthen our international presence in the USA. The JAAS Editorial staff have seen some changes this year too. May Copsey went on maternity leave in the spring of 2014, and returned in December. In her absence, Anna Simpson has taken over the role of Editor, and we thank her for her enthusiasm and contributions to the journal. We also have a new Development Editor, Matt Cude, who was welcomed to the team at the beginning of 2014.
You may have met some of the Editorial team this year at different events, including the Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry, Pittcon, the European Workshop on Laser Ablation 2014, the International Mass Spectrometry Conference, BNASS – TraceSpec Conference, SR2A – Synchrotron Radiation in Art and Archaeology or SCIX 2014. We are always happy to talk about JAAS, so if you see us in 2015, do pass on your thoughts about the journal and ideas for future development.
The Royal Society of Chemistry is also supporting Open Access with authors able to choose between Gold and Green Open Access routes. To support the funder-led evolution to Gold OA, our Gold for Gold initiative rewards all institutions that subscribe to the RSC Gold journal package with voucher codes to make papers available via OA, free of charge. In addition to this, Chemical Science, is set to become the world's first high-quality Open Access chemistry journal. From the first issue in January 2015, our flagship journal will move to Gold Open Access. All content published from that date will be free to every reader. Plus, unlike other Gold Open Access journals, we will waive all Article Processing Charges (APCs) for at least two years, so it will be free for authors too.
Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our authors, referees and readers for your continued support and to wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year!
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