Growth and Change: A Year in Review at JACS Au

The year 2024 was a period of significant growth for JACS Au. We had significant increases in submissions and published content, added a manuscript type, published five thematic Collections, including the journal’s first two Special Issues, and made our first significant changes to the editorial team.

Broader understanding and acceptance of open access publishing was clearly signaled by our >50% growth in submissions and >30% increase in published output compared to the prior year. In a year where most journals’ journal impact factors dropped, ours rose yet again, suggesting growth in usage and citations of our published work. As was the case in 2023, papers from authors in Asia comprised the largest fraction of published output, followed by Europe and then North America. Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Oceania were all also represented within the journal.

Over the course of the year, we published five Collections on topical themes, all of which can be found on the JACS Au website (Table 1). We also introduced our first new paper type since the journal’s launch, Methods and Protocols.¹ This provides a platform for researchers to report innovative experimental and computational methods and best laboratory practices relevant to their disciplines that would also be of interest to the broader scientific community. Our first two of these new (to JACS Au) publications appear in this issue, issue 1 of 2025. New collections will be assembled this year, as well, with one of the first celebrating the fifth anniversary of the journal’s first issue.

Table 1. Topical Collections Published by JACS Au in 2024.

Title	Date
Drug Discovery & Development: Chemistry & Biology in Tandem	February
Materials for Fuel Cells and Water Electrolysis	May
Biocatalysis in Asia and the Pacific	August
Frontiers in Solar Photovoltaic Materials	September
Polymers for the Clean Energy Transition	December

Our third Early Career Advisory Board (ECAB) worked to highlight selected, exciting works published in JACS Au, with their term coming to a close in June of 2024. The papers they selected then comprised the pool of papers eligible for the JACS Au Outstanding Paper Award. This award was given to the paper entitled “Self-Assembled Nanocoatings Protect Microbial Fertilizers for Climate-Resilient Agriculture,” led by Prof. Ariel Furst.^2,3 A new ECAB was appointed in the spring of 2024, and they began their work in July.⁴

While the ECAB changeover occurs in mass every year, terms of membership on our Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) are typically longer. Nonetheless, as we entered our fifth year, we continued the slow rotation of the membership on this advisory body, as well. At the end of 2024, we thanked John Hartwig, Ilan Marek, Ronaldo Pili, Maud Reiter, and Joaquim Henrique Teles for their service on the JACS Au EAB. We also appointed as new EAB members: Livia Eberlin (Baylor College of Medicine), Arthi Jayaraman (University of Delaware), Nuno Maulide (University of Vienna), and Osvaldo Oliveira, Jr. (University of São Paulo). Those who are very familiar with the journal will recognize that both Livia and Nuno previously held editorial roles at JACS Au. Nuno Maulide was a founding member of the editorial team who provided our team expertise in organic chemistry, catalysis, and synthesis, serving as an Associate Editor for 4 years at JACS Au. Livia Eberlin worked as a Topic Editor from 2023 to 2024 and brought expertise in mass spectrometry and analytical methods, especially as applied to biology and medicine. We are grateful that they agreed to continue to assist the journal as EAB members.

Prof. Takashi Ooi of Nagoya University begins his term as an Associate Editor at JACS Au this month. Previously, he served as an Associate Editor at ACS Catalysis for 10 years, including 6 years where he and I worked together on that journal. I am excited to reunite with Takashi, and I know he will serve the JACS Au author, reviewer, and reader communities well. Additional editorial transitions are expected in 2025, as we seek to broaden and expand the expertise of our editorial team.

Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.