Times Are Changing …
Kirsten Severing · Macromolecular Bioscience · 2013
Times have changed a lot since Macromolecular Bioscience was launched 13 years ago. Starting with nine issues per year and a page budget of only 400 pages in 2001, the frequency was increased to twelve issues per year in 2003 and exceeded 1000 pages in its fourth year. Today we are publishing more than 1700 pages a year, while, of course, keeping the high scientific standard. The ISI impact factor recently increased by more than 12% to the current value of 3.886, placing Macromolecular Bioscience among the three top journals in the field of Biomaterials and in the top ten in the field of Polymer Science at the same time. Not only has the layout of Macromolecular Bioscience changed over the years, as you can see in Figure 1 below, but also the reading habits of our customers have done so. Honestly, when have you last gone to the library to look for an article? While we can measure a significant increase in article downloads (Figure 2), reflecting the great interest in our content, fewer and fewer customers have subscribed to the printed version in recent years. To react to these changed reading habits, Macromolecular Bioscience (as well as Macromolecular Theory & Simulations and Macromolecular Reaction Engineering) will therefore be only published online starting from 2013. Of course, this step will not have any consequences for the scientific quality and the strict editorial selection of content based on an independent peer-reviewing process. Furthermore, neither the article layout nor the issue-based publication (and citation) of the content will change. Your most outstanding research will still have the chance to be highlighted on the cover page or on frontispieces. Articles in biorelated areas often involve cell experiments, fluorescence data etc. where color reproduction isn't just a fancy upgrade but scientifically needed. The transition to online-only is therefore an advantage for our authors as we are now able to offer free publication of color figures in our online-only titles. Journal layout now and then. Development of full text downloads for Macromolecular Bioscience. In order to strengthen Macromolecular Bioscience further in the areas of drug delivery systems and controlled radical polymerization, polymer conjugates, and bioengineering, we have invited three new members to the international advisory board of the journal. We are looking forward to an intensified co-operation with Martina Stenzel (Sydney, Australia), Harm-Anton Klok (Lausanne, Switzerland) and Suwan Jayasinghe (University College London, UK). A lot of changes – but some things never change: as always, I would like to use this opportunity also to thank all of the other board members, our critical reviewers, our authors, and, last but not least, our readers for their contributions to the success of Macromolecular Bioscience. I am looking forward to another exciting year! Kirsten Severing Editor