New journal targets materials’ future
IOP Publishing and the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory (SLAB) in Dongguan, China, have teamed up to launch an open-access journal in materials science. Published quarterly, Materials Futures is a multidisciplinary journal that will focus on a range of areas such as material synthesis and processing, characterization, computation, theory, and experimental techniques.
The journal began accepting submissions in August with all articles free to read for all, published under a CC BY license. All the costs of publishing Materials Futures will be covered by SLAB from 2022 to 2024, meaning that there is no charge for publication – known as an article-processing charge – until after that date.
The journal will have three editors-in-chief: Weihua Wang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinkui Zhao, SLAB chief scientist, and Torsten Brezesinski from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. As well as research papers, the journal will feature “future perspectives” that contains scientists’ views on upcoming breakthroughs in the area.
Wang, who is SLAB director and conducts research into metallic glasses, told Physics World that Materials Futures aims to be one of the top-tier journals for materials science. Wang adds that over the past decade materials science has received a substantial investment from the Chinese government, which includes establishing SLAB in 2018 in southern China. Located in Dongguan – a hi-tech area that feature research institutes and companies – SLAB will cover the entire “innovation chain” from basic research to industrial application.
The institute’s research activities cover a broad range of materials. “Research on lighter, stronger, smarter, more flexible, more energy efficient, and higher performing new and super materials is laying the foundation for a brighter future of tomorrow,” adds Wang. “Whoever masters materials, controls the future.”
Michael Banks