Part I: Back in 2007 our then Editor for Materials Today Dr Jon Wood announced our listing by Thompson Scientific in their ISI web of knowledge which tracks some 23,000 journals. From Volume 9, 2006 articles published in Materials Today and the citations to them have been recorded and indexed. Recently our 2008 listing was published and after many months of speculation and anticipation the long wait was over and we were delighted to hear our first impact factor of 12.9.
This figure represents an amazing achievement for our magazine and all those who have contributed to the content over the years both internally and within the greater research community. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our contributors and readers for making this a very special time to celebrate.
As Jon mentioned Impact Factors can sometimes carry a health warning but still remain, (and I predict will continue to be) a popular indicator of a journals quality, value and reputation. Scopus, our very own abstracting and indexing service grows in strength and appeal amongst the scientific community, providing a valuable service in identifying crucial research trends and building virtual networks and communities to enable research and enterprise.
Part II: One of the appeals of Materials Today is in its ability to blend topical news and comment with leading peer reviewed papers, insights, and communications.
A quick search for some of the most popular topics in Materials Today on Scopus show hydrogen storage, (chen and Zhu, doi:10.1016/S1369-7021(07)70276-6), Polymer based solar cells (Mayer et al doi:10.1016/S1369-7021(08)70206-2), corrosion (Frankel and Sridhar, doi:10.1016/S1369-7021(08)70204-9), Graphene (Katsnelson, doi:10.1016/S1369-7021(06)71788-6) and Biomaterials for bone tissue engineering (Stevens, doi:10.1016/S1369-7021(08)70086-5) to be in the top ten.
Part III: Alongside winning content in our magazine Materials Today is also building a unique webinar programme, If you haven't listened to one yet I would urge you to do so and let me know your thoughts, all you need is a computer and you are off!
They are free to attend and give you the unique opportunity to listen and view industrial experts and academics talk about some of the latest developments in technique and instrumentation in some of the most cutting edge areas of research, if you attend these events live (recordings are available) you have the opportunity to “ask the expert”.
So whether it is through the pages of our magazine, via our website, and webinar programme or now by Twitter, @jonathan19280, I hope to hear from you and work with you in building on our recent successes.