Archive by category | Stuart Cantrill

Inside our impact factor

Impact factors mean different things to different people. Some think that they are the worst thing to happen to science. On the other hand, I’ve been told stories of researchers receiving bonus payments in proportion to the impact factors of the journals they publish in – I suppose they don’t feel the same way as the first group (although I imagine this practice reinforces the strength of the opposing view). Irrespective of how you feel about impact factors, they are a measure of something – whether that measure is of any use is a different debate for a different day. What I want to do here is look at how our content is reflected in our latest impact factor – and answer a question that, as editors, we’ve heard quite a few times:  … Read more

Nature Chemistry 2011 Impact Factor

Just a quick note to say that our 2011 Impact Factor was announced yesterday. I realize some of you don’t care for impact factors and that some of you do. So, for what it is worth, our 2011 score is 20.524, which is up from the 2010 value of 17.927 — that’s an increase of 14.5 %. Time permitting, we’ll analyse the number (and what it might mean, if anything) sometime next week here on the blog, just like we did last year.  Read more

We’re hiring!

The founding editorial team at Nature Chemistry was assembled back in 2008 and has stuck together since then, providing a solid foundation for the launch of the journal and its growth in these early years. But it’s time for a change and now Neil is (back) off to the Royal Society of Chemistry to take up the position of Features Editor at Chemistry World. We wish him well (really, we do), but now we need someone to fill his shoes. So, we’re looking for a new Associate Editor here on Nature Chemistry.  Read more

March 2012 issue

March 2012 issue

If you haven’t already noticed, our March 2012 issue went live today. It’s full of the usual good stuff, including research articles, News & Views pieces, and research highlights. This issue is somewhat special, however, in that it also contains what we call a web focus. What’s that you might ask? Well, it’s a small collection of related articles (grouped together on the web), and in this case it’s about protein dynamics. We have two Perspectives (Good vibrations in enzyme-catalysed reactions and Taking Ockham’s razor to enzyme dynamics and catalysis) that offer differing views on the significance that structural dynamics have on the reactivity of enzymes.  Read more

From crazy chemists to engaged learners through education

Editor’s note: We published a series of ‘beyond the bench’ Commentary articles in our September 2011 issue to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry. These are free just for the rest of September, so get them while you can! We recently received some correspondence from John Spevacek on the chemistry education article written by David Smith from York – and so we are publishing it here, with a reply from Smith. We encourage you to add your own thoughts in the comments section here on the blog.  Read more