Essential developments at ChemPubSoc Europe: A European publishing organization with global impact

Twenty years ago numerous European Chemical Societies started to rebuild their landscape of journals to create the publishing organization known today as ChemPubSoc Europe. This union has brought strength to the publishing arm of these societies and its members, and—with the help of the worldwide web—has promoted communication of research in the chemical sciences globally.

Over the years, the pace of chemical research has accelerated and globalized, bringing with it changes to the way in which chemists prefer to publish. To serve the needs of the growing author, referee, reviewer, and reader base, ChemPubSoc Europe has developed apace. 2017 will go down in ChemPubSoc Europe’s history as a year of innovation in which our journals also streamlined their workflows substantially so as to shorten publication times.

Innovations at ChemPubSoc Europe

In 2017 the Accepted Article format became a staple of ChemPubSoc Europe journals, allowing publication of the unedited version of a paper within hours of acceptance, and long before preparation of the final version of record. Several journals increased their publication frequency so as to cater to a significant rise in the number of submissions. Continuous publishing has been adopted by ChemistryOpen, ChemistrySelect, ChemPlusChem, EurJOC, and EurJIC, thereby giving authors access to page numbers within days of acceptance of their manuscripts. Authors enjoyed free color for all graphics published within their articles thanks to the migration of all ChemPubSoc Europe journals entirely online. They also gained greater familiarity with article transfers, which expedite publication of articles when editorial evaluation recommends it, in this way reducing the burden on reviewers. A new family app was released that makes it easy to track and read ChemPubSoc Europe journals (and sister journals such as Angewandte Chemie) on mobile devices. To help authors better identify themselves, ORCID is now compulsory for all corresponding authors submitting manuscripts.

The year 2017 was bookended by two new journals that cater to burgeoning specialty fields in photochemistry and battery development—ChemPhotoChem in January and Batteries&Supercaps in December—seeing the ChemPubSoc Europe portfolio grow to 14 journals (plus ChemViews Magazine). Dr. Greta Heydenrych, Editor-in-Chief of ChemPhotoChem and Batteries&Supercaps, and associated Board Members, welcome high-quality submissions suited to these fields.

Leadership Structure

There have been changes to ChemPubSoc Europe’s leadership structure (new Editors and Chairpersons of the Editorial Board are displayed in item two of this newsletter). Dr. Haymo Ross was elected by the societies to succeed Dr. Neville Compton as the Editor-in-Chief of Chemistry—A European Journal; Prof. Jan-Erling Bäckvall continues his tenure as Chairman of the Editorial Board. New Editors-in-Chief have taken the helm at ChemistryOpen (Dr. Kate Lawrence) and ChemMedChem (Dr. David Peralta), and at EurJIC Dr. Preeti Vashi succeeds retiring Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Karen Hindson. Managing Editor positions have been filled by Dr. Anne Nijs at EurJOC and Dr. Ruben Ragg at ChemBioChem. All of our editors have a successful track record in scientific research and publishing. ChemPubSoc Europe thanks the old guard for their assured leadership, which has propelled the journals from strength to strength.

Growth Metrics

2017 was another record year for ChemPubSoc Europe journals with an approximately 15% overall increase in the number of articles submitted and published. Full-text downloads (counter compliant) exceeded 8 million—a 10% increase on the previous year, and open access articles came close to 4% of total publications. Now in its 10th year, with a 2016 impact factor of 7.226, ChemSusChem has evidently cemented its reputation as a top interdisciplinary journal publishing the best research on chemistry for sustainability and energy. Chemistry-A European Journal continues to attract high-quality articles and reviews, publishing more than 2000 articles in 2017. Meanwhile, ChemElectroChem and ChemistrySelect have seen a dramatic 50% increase in their respective submission volumes. Much of this growth is correlated with a continuous rise in the number of China-based authors seeking publication in respected European journals, entailing recruitment of several professional editorial staff members, with scientific and publishing backgrounds, at our Chinese offices. These staff members will promote the ChemPubSoc Europe family of journals in Asia by attending numerous local conferences and giving workshops.

Support and Collaboration

Throughout 2017 ChemPubSoc Europe lent financial support to the activities of all of its European partner societies with grants and sponsorship of numerous conferences, meetings, symposia, congresses, and workshops. To help our partner societies follow developments in chemical research we have launched a virtual journal compiling the very best of ChemPubSoc Europe Review articles. And to better promote the talent of researchers in Europe we are investing in journalistic collaboration of the magazines affiliated with the European chemical societies and ChemPubSoc Europe’s own ChemViews Magazine.

As ChemPubSoc Europe embraces 2018 we resume distribution of our regular newsletter, informing you of developments close to our hearts and of interest to our members.

Remember, to become a member of ChemPubSoc Europe all you need to do is join one of the 16 European Chemical Societies that make up our publishing community.

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