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Turin: A European Experience—Take Two

2008; Wiley; Volume: 14; Issue: 25 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/chem.200801617

1521-3765

Neville Compton,

History and advancements in chemistry

The 2nd European Chemistry Congress: This special issue of Chemistry—A European Journal marks the 2nd European Chemistry Congress, which takes place in Turin (Torino) in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy between September 16–20, 2008. This conference, entitled “Chemistry: The Global Science” is co-organized by the European Association of Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS) and the Società Chimica Italiana (SCI), the hosting society. A subset of the EuCheMS membership, namely the 14 Chemical Societies that are owners of Chemistry—A European Journal, which formerly collaborated as the Editorial Union of Chemical Societies (EUChemSoc), will now operate under the name ChemPubSoc Europe for their publishing activities with Wiley-VCH.1 1 Turin is a major industrial center and home to, among others, Lavazza, Martini & Rossi, and headquarters of the Fiat car company. The ties between chemistry and Turin are notable, and among those with close associations with the city are Amedeo Avogadro (Avogadro's number), Guilo Natta (Ziegler–Natta catalysts), and Primo Levi (chemist/novelist). Famous landmarks in the city include the Mole Antonelliana, the Palatine Towers, the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, which houses the “Shroud of Turin”, and the Lingotto building in which the conference will be held. This last landmark is the former site of the Fiat plant, which was once the largest car factory in the world. The layout of the production line therein was very innovative in that the raw materials went in at ground level and the finished cars came out on the 5th floor, and the test track, which also featured in the film “The Italian Job”, was situated on the roof. Innovative approaches are essential to the future developments in chemistry. The scientific organizing committee, which is headed by Hartmut Michel, Nobel Laureate and member of the Editorial Board of Angewandte Chemie, and co-chaired by Igor Tkatchenko have ensured that participants at the conference will be treated to a diverse range of innovative chemistry from an impressive array of speakers. The Congress will feature Plenary Lectures from Peter Agre, Avelino Corma, Jean M. J. Fréchet, Robert H. Grubbs, K. C. Nicolaou, Martyn Poliakoff, and K. Barry Sharpless, as well as Keynote Lectures from Varinder K. Aggarwal, Lucia Banci, Xinhe Bao, Matthias Beller, C. Richard A. Catlow, Kenneth G. Caulton, Fritz H. Frimmel, Dante Gatteschi, Jana Hajslová, Dino Moras, Ulrich Stimming, Philip Taylor, Marcel Wubbolts, and Jun-ichi Yoshida. In addition to the Plenary Lectures and the Keynote Lectures, each of the symposia has a number of invited topic lectures and poster sessions. In the opening session K. C. Nicolaou, who will receive the August-Wilhelm-von-Hofmann-Denkmünze (Gold Medal), the prestigious award from the German Chemical Society (GDCh), will give a lecture on “Molecules that Changed the World”, and Martyn Poliakoff, who has been awarded the EuCheMS Lectureship for 2008, will discuss “Multi-phase Catalysis: Maximizing the Opportunities for Supercritical Fluids in Green Chemistry”. Other highlights during the Congress include the Plenary lectures by the Nobel Laureates Barry Sharpless, Peter Agre, and Robert H. Grubbs who will talk about “The Power of Orthogonal Reactivity”, “Aquaporin Water Channels: From Atomic Structure to Clinical Medicine”, and “Metathesis Catalysis for the Synthesis of Large and Small Molecules”, respectively, as well as those on “Catalysis Design for Green and Sustainable Chemistry” by Avelino Corma and on “Designing Nanomaterials for the Life Sciences: From Imaging to Immunotherapy” by Jean M. J. Fréchet. In addition, the GDCh and Wiley-VCH will host a special event on September 17 between 5.30 and 7.30 pm at the North Foyer to celebrate 120 years of Angewandte Chemie, the flagship journal of the GDCh, the GDCh's Karl Ziegler Foundation, the launch of the new journal ChemSusChem, and the winner of the GDCh's August-Wilhelm-von-Hofmann-Denkmünze.1 The 2nd European Chemistry Congress will focus on six different Symposia: 1) Advances in Synthesis; 2) Advances in Understanding, 3) Chemistry and Life Sciences; 4) Energy and Industry; 5) Environment; 6) Materials and Devices. Each of these Symposia will be further subdivided into three related areas. As part of our continued commitment to raise the profile of chemistry in Europe, Chemistry—A European Journal invited various speakers and symposia convenors at the Congress to contribute either a Concept Article, Full Paper, or Communication. The result is this special Congress Issue, which contains 9 Concept Articles, 17 Full Papers, and 7 Communications, including two papers from the Plenary speaker Robert H. Grubbs (p 7536 and 7545), and seven papers from Keynote speakers, namely Matthias Beller (p 7408 and 7687) from the symposium “Greening Chemistry”, Xinhe Bao (p 7478) from the symposium “Porous Materials”, Jun-ichi Yoshida (p 7450) from the symposium “Reactions under Novel Conditions”, Kenneth G. Caulton (p 7680) from the symposium “Radical Reactivity in Transition Metal Chemistry”, and Dante Gatteschi (p 7530) from the symposium “Nanomaterials”. The last paper is featured on the cover of this issue.1 In addition there are papers from the invited speakers and convenors in the following symposia: Organic Catalysis (Alexandre Alexakis (p 7504), Ilan Marek (p 7460)), Radical Reactivity in Transition Metal Chemistry (Bas de Bruin (p 7594), Rinaldo Poli (p 7623), Karl Wieghardt (p 7608)), Reactions under Novel Conditions (Norbert Kockmann (p 7470)), Cutting Edge Chemistry with Computers (C. Richard A. Catlow (p 7699)), Biomolecular Interactions and Mechanisms (Jesus Jiménez Barbero (p 7557 and 7570) Teresa Carlomagno (p 7517), Anna Bernardi (p1 1 7438), Anne Imberty (p 7490)), Metal Homeostatis (Martin Stillmann (p 7579)), Branched Polymers—Smart Functional Materials (Anne-Marie Caminade (p 7422 and 7658)), Nanomaterials (Neil Champness (p 7600), Dirk Guldi (p 7670), and Cédric Boissière (p 7658)), and Porous Materials (Gion Calzaferri (p 7442)). Closer inspection of this list indicates that two of the main symposia, namely “Energy and Industry” and the “Environment” are not featured prominently in this special issue of Chemistry—A European Journal. The reason for this is not that we are not interested in these highly important areas, but rather that they form the basis of a special issue of our new sister journal, ChemSusChem, which focuses on aspects of sustainable chemistry. The special issue features articles by Avelino Corma, Matthias Beller, Michael Grätzel, Pierre Gallezot, Thomas Reichenauer, and Michele Aresta. More about this fascinating area can be gleaned from an Editorial in ChemSusChem by Gabriele Centi, one of the co-chairman of the Editorial Board of ChemSusChem, and convenor of the symposium on “Greening Chemistry”. 1 European Expansion: In 2006, Chemistry—A European Journal increased the frequency of publication from 24 to 36 issues. This year the number of submissions from around the world has continued to rise unabatedly (up by over 30% compared to 2007) and thus in an effort to meet the demands of the community, we will increase the frequency further to 48 issues in 2009. 1 Recent growth of the journal is clearly illustrated in the increase in the number of articles published since 2005 (Figure 1). In comparison, two of our main competitors, namely the Journal of the American Chemical Society (2005: 3391; 2006: 3256; 2007: 2953), published by the American Chemical Society, and Chemical Communications (2005: 1600; 2006: 1309; 2007: 1272), published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, published about 13 % and 20 % fewer articles in 2007 since peaking in 2005 (data from the Journal Citation Reports® released by Thomson ISI; see Figure 1). The reasons for this approach may be manifold and should be taken up with the journals concerned. Changes in the number of articles published each year between 2005 and 2007 by Chemistry—A European Journal, Angewandte Chemie, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and Chemical Communications. Data taken from the Thomson ISI Journal Citation Reports®. Despite this continued growth of Chemistry—A European Journal, we have again managed to reduce the median publication times by an additional 14 days, and plan to reduce this further in the coming months. Where necessary for special cases, Chemistry—A European Journal, can, like Angewandte Chemie and the other members of the European family, be extremely fast, for example, publish a manuscript from submission to online publication within a week or two. The highest ever Impact Factor for Chemistry—A European Journal of 5.330 was released in June, and we were delighted that it had risen for the sixth consecutive year. 1 Of our major competitors for Full Papers, the Journal of the American Chemical Society rose to 7.885, whereas the New Journal of Chemistry, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, remained about the same at 2.651 (IF 2007: 2.647). Of the other members of the ChemPubSoc Europe journals, ChemMedChem, which also has close ties to the Società Chimica Italiana (SCI), had an impressive first Impact Factor of 2.825; the Impact Factors of the European Journal of Organic Chemistry and of ChemPhysChem rose to 2.914 and 3.502, respectively; while the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry and ChemBioChem consolidated their positions with values of 2.597 and 3.446, respectively. These developments illustrate the strength of the partnership between Wiley-VCH and ChemPubSoc Europe. And finally, the Impact Factor of the parent journal of several of these products, Angewandte Chemie, the flagship journal of the German Chemical Society, remained above 10 for the second consecutive year, well above its direct competitors. 400 Not Out! This issue also contains the 400th Concept Article published by Chemistry—A European Journal. The Concept Articles are very widely read and highly appreciated by our readers and will continue to form an integral part in the make up of the journal. The features now added, namely the Communications and Reviews, enhance the appeal of the journal and provide the authors with the opportunity to publish their best work with us regardless of the format. The bottom line is that the work is of top quality. Successful Launch: The decision to launch Communications in Chemistry—A European Journal has proven to be a real hit with our authors and readers. We have already received and published numerous articles, all of which have experienced high download numbers. Some of the Communications published have resulted from transfers with subsequent revision from our sister journal Angewandte Chemie and some have been directly submitted to the journal. The criteria and the benefits to the authors (and referees) associated with former procedure are discussed in the Editorial by Peter Gölitz in issue 38 of Angewandte Chemie. An ever increasing percentage of our authors are making use of the Manuscript Submission Templates, which are available for each of our manuscript types on the journal homepage. Using these tools facilitates the peer review process and is favored by most of our referees. Further improvements are ongoing in our efforts to provide the best possible service for our authors, reviewers, and readers. More about these developments will appear in the near future. Thank you: The Editorial Staff would like to thank all our Editorial Board Members, reviewers, authors, and readers for making Chemistry—A European Journal such an enjoyable environment in which to work. I will be attending the Congress in Turin and would be delighted to discuss any matters concerning the journal and how we can further optimize our services to meet your needs. And finally, I would like to thank all those who have contributed to this issue for the 2nd European Chemistry Congress in Turin, and I would like to wish the organizers of the event every success. The Congress in Turin is a further step towards establishing a regular European counterpart to the Spring and Fall Meetings of the American Chemical Society. I am sure that this event will serve, in a similar way to Chemistry—A European Journal, to further unite the chemical sciences within Europe.1 Neville Compton, Editor PS: Hope you all enjoy the issue and the Congress, and please remember, we would be delighted to see you at the GDCh/Wiley-VCH celebration.