Looking back at the Materials Horizons 10th anniversary

Birthdays are always a time to celebrate with the important people in our life. It is a time to reflect on the past and make plans for the next years. We also contemplate the changes around us and how this will affect our future. This is no different to when we celebrate the milestone of a journal.

Born in 2014, Materials Horizons strived to be somewhat different to other journals. We wanted to create a platform for new concepts and ideas that might be ahead of their time and a place for discussion. Admittedly, the new concept statement (“Conceptual insights”) was initially hard to grasp for our readers. We wanted to offer non-expert readers a simple summary of the publication to help them understand the significance of this work and what new solution the authors propose to an important scientific problem. The aim is to make the publication accessible to a wide readership.

The first issues in 2014 indeed had exciting publications that proposed a new idea or reported on new observations. As with any birthday where we reflect on the times past, we asked our inaugural authors to reflect on their publications 10 years after they were published in 2014. What happened to their work? I enjoyed reading the reflection articles on side-chain fullerene polyesters (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4MH90124J), quantum dots (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4MH90096K), graphene oxide (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4MH90058H), polypyrrole nanospheres (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4MH90041C), perovskites (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4MH90029D), shape-memory scaffolds (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4MH90010C) and the protein corona of nanoparticles (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4MH90011A). Some publications have served as the foundation for many others, while other authors have acknowledged that what seemed like a promising idea at the time ultimately did not deliver as expected. This is a natural part of the scientific process, though we seldom discuss past ideas that didn't turn out as expected. However, we often learn more from unexpected outcomes than from successes. Science becomes truly fascinating when results differ from what we anticipated—that's when discoveries happen. For progress to continue and science to improve, we must be honest about our failures and be willing to discuss them openly.

Discoveries and failures accompany the path of all researchers. We therefore asked established researchers to share with us their views on their area of expertise, given their insights on a specific topic many of us won’t have. We recently introduced opinion articles written by leaders in the field summarising the challenges and opportunities of a specific field. For example, Acharya and Owens (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4MH00883A) provide strategies for the design of organic bioelectronics, while Barner-Kowollik and co-workers (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4MH00976B) question the long-standing belief that photoreaction should take place at the absorption maxima. Monakhov highlights that vanadium will in future be a key element for quantum computing (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3MH01926H). A must-read opinion article is by Boem and co-workers, who advocate for rigorous standards and control of research findings as a means to reduce errors in published research. This closes again the loop to the importance of honesty in research (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3MH01781H).

In an era of paper mills and irreproducible research, publishers with the highest ethical standards, like the RSC, are more crucial than ever. However, achieving this level of integrity is only possible with the support of our community. It is our reviewers who meticulously evaluate submitted manuscripts, identifying potential inconsistencies and ensuring the quality of research. These dedicated volunteers play an essential role in maintaining the integrity of the publishing process and highlighting exciting new discoveries. The publishing system, as we know it, would not be possible without the invaluable contributions of our expert reviewers, and we are deeply grateful for their efforts.

At Materials Horizons and the RSC, we are committed to fostering a supportive community, welcoming new authors, promoting emerging talent, and providing a platform for our diverse scientific community to come together. One example of this is our Community Board, made up of early-career researchers, who regularly curate virtual issues on a variety of pressing topics, such as energy storage and harvesting (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4MH90074J). We are also committed to spotlighting Emerging Investigators in materials science, celebrating promising scientists in the early phases of their independent careers. This series, which began in 2020, has highlighted over 20 rising leaders in 2024 alone. We warmly welcomed researchers at all stages of their careers and invited them to join the Materials Horizons community by showcasing their first publications in the journal during the anniversary year in a special collection called #MyFirstMH. This collection continues to be updated on a semi-regular basis to showcase some of the latest publications in the journal by our new authors. There is comfort in knowing that the RSC cares about high-quality research but also cares about the scientific community where every researcher from different stages of their career deserves to be celebrated.

Now that our 10th-year birthday party draws to a close, we count our presents: more than 2000 articles from renowned and emerging researchers across the globe have been published, covering a diverse range of materials and applications. We would like to thank our authors and reviewers who put their trust in us and supported us. Tomorrow we will continue to publish high-quality research, work with our scientific community and prepare ourselves for the changes in the publishing landscape.

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