The Australian Journal of Chemistry – Its New Publishing Concept
Curt Wentrup AA School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia. Email: wentrup@uq.edu.au
Curt Wentrup was born in Denmark and educated at the University of Copenhagen (Cand. Scient. 1966 with Prof. K. A. Jensen; DSc 1976), and the Australian National University, Canberra (PhD 1969 with Prof. W. D. Crow). After postdoctoral work with Prof. H. Dahn at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland, and a junior faculty position at the same institution, he was appointed professor of organic chemistry at the Universität Marburg (1976–85) before taking up the Chair of Organic Chemistry at The University of Queensland in 1985. In 2008 he was appointed Emeritus Professor at The University of Queensland. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2000, and received the Centenary Medal of the Australian Commonwealth in 2001. He serves or has served on the editorial or advisory boards of a number of journals and has been the organizer or co-organizer of numerous national and international conferences and symposia, including the well-known Heron Island Conferences on Reactive Intermediates and Unusual Molecules. He collaborates extensively with groups in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Singapore, and Switzerland. His research interests are in the field of reactive intermediates, particularly nitrenes, carbenes, zwitterions, and ylides (R-:N:, R2C:, and R-CN(+)-X–) and cumulenes (ketenes, ketenimines, and iminopropadienones RN=C=C=C=O). This research employs flash vacuum thermolysis (FVT), photochemistry, matrix isolation, and in recent years has included microwave-induced thermal chemistry as an alternative to FVT. This technique offers much potential for the application of reactive intermediates in organic synthesis. |
Australian Journal of Chemistry 62(1) 1-2 https://doi.org/10.1071/CH09022
Published: 21 January 2009
Big changes took place at the Australian Journal of Chemistry during the past few months of 2008. The Journal moved from being an in-house publication, handled and published by the staff at CSIRO Publishing in Melbourne, to being an ‘out-of-house’ publication, where a team of associate editors is responsible for the selection of reviewers and ultimately the acceptance or rejection of papers. I was pleased to accept the multi-faceted and challenging position of Editor-in-Chief of the Journal in August, and by October 2008 we had appointed eight Australia-based Associate Editors (Handling). I am fortunate to have this team of dedicated, enthusiastic scientists, who will help raise the profile of the Journal. Their expertise, covering all areas of modern chemistry, will ensure a high standard of published papers. In addition, we have appointed eight Associate Editors (Commissioning), located in Asia, Australia, Europe and the USA. Their role is to commission reviews and Research Fronts on selected, topical subjects of interest to the very diverse readership of the Journal.
The concept of Research Fronts was introduced by the previous Managing Editor, Alison Green, in 2005. ‘Fronts’ consist of a series of papers, usually starting with an essay and a review, on a topic of interest, mostly authored by scientists at the forefront of research in the field. This concept has been very successful in increasing the international standing of the Journal (subtitled ‘An International Journal for Chemical Science’) and raising the impact factor to a very respectable 2.360 in 2007. The immediacy index and the total number of citations of papers published, are 0.682 and 4764, respectively. Ten years ago (1999) these numbers (impact factor, immediacy index and total cites) were 0.803, 0.214, and 3923. Five years ago (2003) they were 1.434, 0.347, and 3827 (data are from the ISI Web of Knowledge). A comparison with the data published for other chemistry journals reveals that we compete very well, and we have overtaken several other well established journals; we just need to publish more papers while at the same time raising the standards. There is scope for increasing the number of pages published. The number of submitted manuscripts is increasing, but the rejection rate is high (65%). Evidently, we will continue to publish Research Fronts and reviews, and the team of Commissioning Editors is already lining up a variety of Fronts to be published over the next year. Just to give a flavour, some keywords include Electronic Materials, Carbohydrates, Polymer Chemistry, Radical Chemistry, Crystal Engineering, Molecular Modelling, Forensic Chemistry, Photobiology, Electrochemistry, Self-assembly, and Nanostructures, and the list is growing rapidly. Chemistry itself has changed dramatically in recent years, making decisive inroads into biology, medicine, materials science, etc. Therefore, it is a challenge for a general chemistry journal to cover the most recent developments in the classical chemical sciences as well as at the interfaces with other disciplines.
While the Journal has become truly international and will remain so, we are conscious of the fact that the Journal is based in Australia, it is published by the Australian chemical community, and we aim to see a larger proportion of the best chemical research carried out in Australasia published in the Journal. The rapidly increasing impact factor will make the Journal an attractive and convenient place to publish, facilitated by the easy-to-use on-line submission vehicle Osprey, and by the very efficient publishing team at CSIRO Publishing in Melbourne, led by Dr Jenny Bennett.
The Journal aims for a short turn-around time from submission to acceptance (or rejection) of 2 months or less in most cases, and from submission to publishing of 2–4 months. The new team of Associate Editors will ensure that this timeframe is maintained or shortened.
The Australian Journal of Chemistry is entering its 62nd year of publishing. The history of the first 60 years was described in an editorial by Martin Banwell in 2007 (Aust. J. Chem. 2007, 60, 1). With the new publishing system in place, a new era is starting, and we can look forward to the Journal going from strength to strength. Our goals are high. We want to make this one of the major general chemistry journals in the world.
My special thanks go to the authors for providing high quality work, to the reviewers and associate editors for ensuring high standards, to the staff at CSIRO Publishing for their efficient and professional managing of the Journal, and to you, the reader, for your support. I hope to provide you with a high quality publication. At the same time, your suggestions as to any further improvements that we can make will be welcome. We need to know what you, the readers and authors like, and what you don’t like.
I wish you all a very happy, successful and productive New Year.
Curt Wentrup
Editor-in-Chief
