Abstract
That was ten, this is now! The Editor‐in‐Chief of ChemistryOpen Francesca Novara discusses what 2020 meant for the development of open science and ChemistryOpen and what is the landscape in which ChemistryOpen will celebrate its 10th anniversary.
The State That We Are In
2020 has been a year like no other. We have radically changed the way we live and the global pandemic has wrought profound disruption in each economic sector. For good or bad, the global crisis has also accelerated some trends that were in a transition phase. Along with digitalization processes, remote and e‐commerce, and smart working, open science has definitely been promoted from being a new trend in academic research into the new way of doing science. In many ways, 2020 has been an example of how fast, open and collaborative science can actually save human lives. In March 2020, as the world was struggling to contain the spread of the new coronavirus, the Unesco [1] called on governments to “reinforce scientific cooperation and integrate open science in their research programmes to prevent and mitigate global crises”. The scientific community responded quickly. [2] Major research organizations and publishers started sharing freely all research related to COVID‐19. In less than one year, it looks like we can see the light at the end of the tunnel with scientists coming up with more than one vaccine in unprecedented record time! It is in these unpredictable times dominated by fast transformations that, ChemistryOpen is about to turn 10 years old.
Yes, We're Open!
The impact of Open Science on open access publishing has been significant in the chemistry community as well. In the last 10 years, the number of chemistry papers published as open access has doubled, and in 2020 has reached the impressive record of almost half of the chemistry researched published open access (Figure 1)! Transformative agreements all over the world are being negotiated, and while there is still uncertainty regarding the best way to go forward and what is the best publishing model of the future, the result is that more research than ever before is no longer behind a paywall. [3]
Figure 1.
Total number of manuscripts published in the Web of Science “chemistry multidisciplinary” category. The open access fraction is highlighted. Data taken from Clarivate Analytics Web of Science. Data for the year 2020 up to December 8th.
A Decade of ChemistryOpen: an Open Access Pioneer!
Let's take a step back. Why was ChemistryOpen launched in the first place? In the first decade of the new century, some of the European governments part of ChemPubSoc Europe (now Chemistry Europe Chemistry Europe) have started to recommend that all the research conducted with their funding be freely accessible for all readers, irrespective of socioeconomic or geographical considerations. As a response, and with the endorsement of the owner societies, ChemPubSoc Europe has launched ChemistryOpen. Back then, there was quite some skepticism regarding the open access publishing model. However, the involvement of the societies has been crucial in promoting the journal and its high ethical and quality standards among the chemistry community in Europe and worldwide. And 10 years later ChemistryOpen is one of the leading open access chemistry journals!
Below you can see the first Front Cover of ChemistryOpen showing that by creating the first chemical society‐owned fully open‐access journal, ChemPubSoc Europe and Wiley‐VCH have unlocked the doors to science. In the meantime, ChemPubSoc Europe has become Chemistry Europe, and the journal has a completely new look!
Once again this year, ChemistryOpen has receive the highest number yearly submissions to date, and has achieved a record‐breaking number of downloads. A big thanks to all of our authors for sending us your fascinating research from all over the world, and enabling the journal to reach a strong positioning in the everchanging and expanding publishing landscape. 10 years later, we are still your ideal venue for the submission of your next open access chemistry paper!
It is not just the open access nature of ChemistryOpen to favor the high number of download, but also the great science that we receive throughout the year. Check out our 10 most downloaded papers of the las 12 months (Table 1), which contain a combination of original research and Review‐Type articles. We are very glad to see the contributions by 6 of the members of our EAB in this list. Thank you very much for keeping the standards for ChemistryOpen high!
Table 1.
The ten most accessed articles in ChemistryOpen from December 2019 to November 2020.
|
Corresponding Author(s) |
Title |
Type |
DOI[a] |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Zheng‐Wang Qu, Vakhid A. Mamedov, Stefan Grimme |
Acid‐Catalyzed Rearrangements of 3‐Aryloxirane‐2‐Carboxamides: Novel DFT Mechanistics Insights |
Communication |
|
|
Elvira E. Shults |
Efficient Synthesis of the N‐(buta‐2,3‐dienyl)carboxamide of Isopimaric Acid and the Potential of This Compound towards Heterocyclic Derivatives of Diterpenoids |
Full Paper |
|
|
Rituparna Das, Balaram Mukhopadhyay |
Chemical O‐Glycosylations: An Overview |
Review |
|
|
Giampaolo Barone, Matthias Bickelhaupt |
B‐DNA Structure and Stability as Function of Nucleic Acid Composition: Dispersion‐Corrected DFT Study of Dinucleoside Monophosphate Single and Double Strand |
Full Paper |
|
|
Rosaria Ciriminna, Mario Pagliaro |
Biodegradable and Compostable Plastics: A Critical Perspective on the Dawn of their Global Adoption |
Review |
|
|
Anne S. Meyer, Herre S. J. van der Zant |
Creation of Conductive Graphene Materials by Bacterial Reduction Using Shewanella Oneidensis |
Full Paper |
|
|
Carlos Lodeiro |
Green and Red Fluorescent Dyes for Translational Applications in Imaging and Sensing Analytes: A Dual‐Color Flags |
Review |
|
|
Vinicio Zanirato |
The Fascinating Chemistry of α‐Haloamides |
Review |
|
|
Alberto Credi |
Making and Operating Molecular Machines: A Multidisciplinary Challenge |
Minireview |
|
|
Fernando Albericio |
Understanding Tetrahydropyranyl as a Protecting Group in Peptide Chemistry |
Review |
[a] Digital object identifiers (DOIs) can be resolved at https://doi.org.
Time to Say Goodbye
While ChemistryOpen gets ready to celebrate its first decade, we have to say goodbye to some of the people that have supported the journal over the years and have been instrumental to its success. At the end of his term as Editorial co‐Chair, Professor Ramón Martinez‐Manez has a message to share: When a few years ago I was invited to participate as Editorial Board Chair of the Journal ChemistryOpen, it was an honor to me to be selected among many other researchers to contribute to the development and dissemination of this new magazine. ChemistryOpen (published on behalf of Chemistry Europe, an association of 16 European Chemical Societies) was one of the first journals to publish under the concept of gold‐road open‐access, which is today a concept that has been followed many other journals. Today ChemistryOpen is a well‐established journal in the field of multidisciplinary chemistry and an excellent environment for the publication of reviews, full papers and communications from all areas of chemistry and also from related fields. Time passes quickly and the time has come to make way for other researchers to continue in the Editorial Board Chair of ChemistryOpen. For me it has been an excellent experience and a privilege to have been Chair of this Journal. From my field of research, I will continue to contribute with the publication of my group‘s research in ChemistryOpen and consolidate the Journal as a forum for the publication of high‐level research in chemistry in the coming years. Thanks for everything Ramón!
A Big Welcome
We are delighted to welcome Yan Yu as co‐Chair of the ChemistryOpen’s Editorial Advisory Board. Yan is Professor of materials science at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). Her research focuses on the design of new nanomaterials for clean energy. Here's Yan Yu's first message to ChemistryOpen's readers:
“It is a great honor for me to be an Editorial Board Chair of ChemistryOpen from January 2021. Through its development over the course of nearly 10 years, ChemistryOpen has made considerable progress in content quality, contributions, and citations, and is now an established high‐level chemistry journal. As for me, I will be happy to consolidate and promote the influence of ChemistryOpen in the future, especially in the chemistry and electrochemistry communities that I am familiar with.”
We are delighted to have you on Board and look forward to working with you!
We are also very happy to introduce the researchers that have agreed to join the Editorial Advisory Board of ChemstryOpen starting from January 2021 and for the next four years. (Table 2). To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Journal, a Special Collection showcasing the work of our Board Members will be published over the course of the entire year. We look forward to learning more about the latest research of our old and new Editorial Advisory Board Members!
Table 2.
New members of the ChemistryOpen's International Advisory Board.
|
Name |
Institution |
Country |
|---|---|---|
|
Debashis Adhikari |
IISER Mohali |
India |
|
Luca Beverina |
Università degli studi Milano‐Bicocca |
Italy |
|
Carles Bo |
ICIQ Terragona |
Spain |
|
Giorgio Colombo |
Università di Pavia |
Italy |
|
Viktoria Däschlein‐Gessner |
Ruhr Universität Bochum |
Germany |
|
Ekambaram Balaraman |
IISER Tirupati |
India |
|
Renana Gershoni Poranne |
ETH Zürich |
Switzerland |
|
Liang‐Nian He |
Nankai University |
China |
|
Eva Hevia |
University of Bern |
Switzerland |
|
Fahmi Himo |
Stockholm University |
Sweden |
|
Adam Lee |
RMIT Melbourne |
Australia |
|
Yi‐Tao Long |
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing |
China |
|
Tiow‐Gan Ong |
National Taiwan University |
Taiwan |
|
Vivek Polshettiwar |
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai |
India |
|
Jennifer Roizen |
Duke University (NC) |
USA |
|
Cristina Trujillo |
Trinity College Dublin |
Ireland |
|
Thomas Werner |
LIKAT, Rostock |
Germany |
Something Special
In 2020, ChemistryOpen has put together its largest Special Collection of invited papers to date, which was dedicated to “Functional Supramolecular Systems”. Thank you very much to all the authors that have sent their interesting research for this Collection, and to our Guest Editors Jean‐Marie Lehn (ISIS, Strasbourg), Stefan Matile (University of Geneva), and Davide Bonifazi (University of Cardiff).
In February 2020 ChemistryOpen will publish a Special Issue that will highlight the DFG funded cluster of research SPP 1708, [4] dedicated to “Materials Synthesis in Ionic Liquids”. Michael Ruck, chair of the research cluster, serves as Guest Editor for this issue. Stay tuned for almost 20 papers describing all the aspects of ionic liquids that you could ever think of!
Connected Despite the Isolation
In November 2020 ChemistryOpen has hosted its first Virtual Sympsium dedicated to Open Science. This has been a great experience and a very good way to connect with the scientific communities in these times of isolation and lockdowns. In this event we were lucky to have as speakers Rommie Amaro, Alberto Pepe and our Board member Matthew Todd (Figure 2). Thanks to their fascinating talks and the brilliant moderation of Marcus Hanwell we learned that sharing scientific research through collaborative networks thus making accessible to everyone does not only accelerate scientific progress, but it's also the key to reaching a more inclusive and supportive culture in science. Stay tuned for our next Virtual Event!
Figure 2.
The announcement of our first ChemistryOpen VirtualSymposium dedicated to Open Science in November 2020.
More Visibility
We are delighted to announce that ChemistryOpen has been accepted for indexing in MEDLINE®. We are very proud of the inclusion in this important database and look forward to bringing ChemistryOpen’s articles to the attention of many more researchers!
Keeping in Touch!
Are you interested in ChemistryOpen? Do you have an idea, a comment, or some criticism and want to let us know about it? Would you like to be more involved with the journal and suggest a topic for a Special Collection or a Review proposal? Please get in touch and contact us here in the chemistryopen@chemistry-europe.org. We look forward to hearing from you! Do you want to learn more about the latest content and see what are the Editors up to? Follow us on Twitter @ChemistryOpen!
On behalf of the entire ChemistryOpen Editorial Team, we thank our Editorial Advisory Board members, reviewers, authors, and readers for their continuous support and wish you all the best for 2021! We look forward to the next decade of ChemistryOpen and to a better 2021!
Dr. Francesca R. Novara
Editor‐in‐Chief
ChemistryOpen
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
F. R. Novara, ChemistryOpen 2021, 10, 4.
References
- 1. https://en.unesco.org/covid19/sciencesresponse.
- 2. Amaro R. E., Mulholland A., J. Chem. Inf. Model. 2020, 60, 2653–2646. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 3. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/04/07/seeking-sustainability-publishing-models-for-an-open-access-age/.
- 4. https://bit.ly/37bfF9A.