The Editorial Process at Materials Horizons and Nanoscale Horizons

As the Royal Society of Chemistry's leading journals in materials science and nanoscience & nanotechnology, our “Horizons” journals share a common ethos to serve as outlets for exceptionally high quality and innovative research. We strongly believe that the journals should offer great service to our authors, which manifests in one aspect as a very fast, rigorous and thorough editorial process. We wish to be transparent about our editorial procedures and policies. To that end we provide in this Editorial the collective thoughts of the two journal Editorial Boards of research-active scientists and the publishing staff in the RSC's Cambridge, UK editorial office.

To lift the lid, so to speak, on what happens to a manuscript after submission to a Horizons journal, all manuscripts are initially assessed by a team of professional Publishing Editors who have a wide range of scientific backgrounds and are listed on the journals’ website for your information. They make an assessment of whether the manuscript may be suitable for the journal, based on the scope and very high significance and broad general interest criteria required for publication (see guidance below). The team meet daily to discuss new submissions as well as decisions and resubmissions. Publishing Editors are supported in this initial decision making by our academic Scientific Editors who are all members of our Editorial Board and active researchers in the field. We have a team of 8 Scientific Editors on the Materials Horizons Editorial Board and a team of 6 for Nanoscale Horizons. Their combined expertise covers the scopes of each journal, which means we have a broad range of critical insight available to aid in the editorial process. Only manuscripts that are successful during this initial assessment will be sent for full peer review.

If you are not yet familiar with the journals, we provide some general considerations which we take into account when assessing the suitability of original research for publication on our website. These are:

• Articles that challenge current thinking, present new unexpected observations, create new directions or introduce a new understanding of a topic. For example, new mechanisms, new synthetic procedures or simplifying a current challenging or lengthy synthetic method, new molecular design guidelines, novel properties that have not been observed before, novel applications

• Articles with no new concept, but truly exceptional (top 5% in field) and surprising results are welcome

• We consider that a new (nano)material can be equated with a new concept if potentially surprising performance/properties are reported

• Demonstration of use of a (nano)material in an application is not a requirement, but could provide further evidence for the impact of the work

• Reports on known (nano)materials are acceptable if (i) the article reports unexpected combinations with other materials or (ii) the article reports a new unexpected application, new observations or physical properties, etc., that provide insight into molecular design rules/guidelines

• Authors should ensure that there is sufficient information on (nano)material synthesis and characterisation in the article or ESI for the work to be repeatable. If it is not present then the editors will return the article to the authors

• Articles that contain some or wholly theoretical/computational studies are welcome. They should contain a discussion that compares the study to experimental data, if this exists in the literature. Authors must provide sufficient information to enable readers to reproduce any computational results. The computational methods used in the study should be included in either the article or the ESI. If software was used for calculations and is generally available, it must be properly cited in the notes and references. References to the methods upon which the software is based must also be provided. Computational results obtained using methods, parameters, or input data that are not adequately described in the manuscript or in the referenced literature are not acceptable for publication

• Articles that do not put into context the importance of the study are not suitable for peer review in the journal. Articles with no comparison to state of the art (if available) are not suitable for peer review in the journal

• Articles that simply report a combination of already known things with no surprising results are not suitable for peer review in the journal

 

Once sent out for peer review, the journals follow a single-blind peer review process and articles are typically sent to at least three independent reviewers for evaluation. The Publishing Editors are responsible for peer review and associated editorial decisions. The team are guided by our Editorial Boards who set the scientific standards and guidelines for the journals. You can find a list of our Editorial Board members and their roles on the journal websites.

It is our sincere hope that our editorial process is respected. We appreciate that part of this is knowing and understanding what the process entails and we believe transparency is key to this. Real people who care about the service provided to authors and the development of the journals are making decisions and sometimes mistakes do happen – the system is not perfect. We recognise that not everyone will be satisfied with the outcome of our editorial process all of the time. From time to time, authors truly disagree with the outcome of a rejection either in the editorial review or peer review stage. We will consider appeals, but a very strong case needs to be made that provides clear documentation as to what was missed or misunderstood by the editorial team and/or the reviewers. Authors are advised to limit their comments to the subject manner and avoid personal criticism whenever possible, and to make the appeal as objective as possible. When appeals are deemed to have merit, the editorial office may seek further input from an editorial board member and/or additional reviewer, when necessary.

We welcome comments and feedback for both journals, so please do get in touch at any time.

 

Sam Keltie

Executive Editor, Materials Horizons & Nanoscale Horizons,

Royal Society of Chemistry

 

Michaela Mühlberg

Managing Editor, Nanoscale Horizons,

Royal Society of Chemistry

 

Harold Craighead

Editorial Board Chair, Nanoscale Horizons,

Cornell University, USA

 

Seth Marder

Editorial Board Chair, Materials Horizons,

Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

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