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Diversity and Collaboration—Essential Ingredients for Success

2017; Wiley; Volume: 57; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/anie.201712699

1521-3773

Neville Compton,

Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Diversity is the key to success: Chemistry and society benefit greatly from diversity and collaboration. Given the critical global challenges we face, chemists of all disciplines and nationalities need to work together to find viable solutions. In September last year I had the privilege to attend the inaugural Primo Levi Prize lecture “The Same and Not the Same” given by Roald Hoffmann at the German Chemical Society's Scientific Forum in Berlin. It was a memorable lecture that is available online in English in full. For someone to stress the importance of diversity and collaboration after having gone through such experiences early in life is truly remarkable and a testament to a wonderful human being (Figure 1). In the last few months I have also had the pleasure to attend lectures held by Nobel Laureates J. Fraser Stoddart and Ben Feringa both of whom stressed the importance of diversity within their respective research groups for the developments and advancements that have been made. Many current politicians would benefit from listening to such chemists rather than trying to muzzle them or hinder their research. Angewandte Chemie has always prided itself in being open to all fields of chemistry and to chemists from all nations and it will continue to do so under my tenure as Editor-in-Chief. Overall, the journal published approximately 100 Communications more than in 2016, with authors from over 60 nations. China has headed the list in terms of submissions to Angewandte Chemie since 2005, and in 2017 for the first time more papers were published from China than from any other country. Notable increases in submissions have also been witnessed from the UK, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Singapore, and Poland. Roald Hoffmann discussing diversity in his Primo Levi Prize lecture in Berlin in 2017. Success in chemistry is based on collaborations between many people with different skill sets and interests. The best multidisciplinary papers have experts working together on interesting challenges from different angles. Chemical societies have a key role to play to ensure that chemists from different nations have the opportunities to work together for the benefit of science and society. In this respect it is highly encouraging that the German Chemical Society (GDCh), the owners of Angewandte Chemie, signed new memorandums of understanding with the Chinese Chemical Society and the Korean Chemical Society at the 150th anniversary celebrations in Berlin and more recently with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) at a special celebratory event at Burlington House in London. The ties between the GDCh and the RSC are very strong and have a long history, August Wilhelm von Hofmann was both a President of the RSC (1861–1863) and the first President of the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft in 1867, the first predecessor organization of the GDCh. The event in London also featured the Alexander Todd–Hans Krebs Award Lecture, which is given jointly by the GDCh and the RSC, and which this time went to Professor Thomas Carell from the LMU Munich, a current member of the Editorial Board of Angewandte Chemie. Chemists are pivotal to the successful handling of the global challenges faced in terms of energy, water, food, and sustainability—all topics selected for the joint symposium. International collaborations and commitments here will be essential to our chances of mastering these in the coming years (Figure 2). Speakers, session chairs, and organizers of the joint RSC–GDCh Symposium to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the German Chemical Society. Back row (left to right): Hans-Georg Weinig, Monika Pischetsrieder, Neville Compton, Matthias Urmann, Philipp Adelhelm, William Brock, Brigitte Osterath, Robert Parker, Thomas Carell, Sabine Flitsch, Wolfram Koch, Stuart Govan, Pete Licence, and Adam Brownsell. Front row (left to right): Elise Cartmell, Pilar Goya, Thisbe Lindhorst, John Holman, Anna Simpson, Elizabeth Rowsell, and Sarah Thomas. Picture from the RSC. As mentioned previously, 2017 was a very special year for the German Chemical Society (GDCh). The society celebrated its 150th anniversary with a series of events, a highlight of which was the Angewandte Chemie Symposium in Berlin in September (see Jubilee issue (issue 37) and the post-event Editorial in issue 43). The fantastic lectures from that day can still be viewed under www.chemistryviews.org/angewandtefestsymposium. Angewandte Chemie also published a number of other special issues in 2017 including those to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Society for Chemistry (issue 22) and 100th anniversary of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (issue 29) and one to commemorate the 80th birthday of Roald Hoffmann (issue 34). As I have said before Peter Gölitz's shoes are big ones to fill at Angewandte Chemie, but I am not the only one who has taken on new editorial responsibilities in our family of journals. Haymo Ross has succeeded me as Editor-in-Chief at Chemistry—A European Journal, David Peralta is the new Editor-in-Chief of ChemMedChem, Preeti Vashi has taken over from Karen Hindson as Editor-in-Chief at the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, and Kate Lawrence is the new Editor-in-Chief of ChemistryOpen. Anne Nijs is the new Managing Editor of the European Journal of Organic Chemistry and Ruben Ragg has taken on the Managing Editor role at ChemBioChem. As usual a number of members of the Editorial Board have completed their term of office and our sincere thanks on go to Matthias Beller, Stefan Buchholz, Claus Feldmann, Martin Suhm, Herbert Waldmann, and Hanno Wild for their tremendous support and advice over the years. Their input on issues critical for the development of the journal have been invaluable and have contributed significantly to the success of the journal. At the same time we welcome Walter Leitner, Erwin Reisner, Wolfgang Schnick, Wolfgang Schuhmann, Harald Schwalbe, and Tanja Weil to our Editorial Board. More information about the new members can be found in the accompanying news section in this issue. Similarly, we would like to thank Roald Hoffmann, Jean-Marie Lehn, Ian Manners, E. W. “Bert” Meijer, Ryoji Noyori, Michel Orrit, Masakatsu Shibasaki, George Whitesides, and Chi-Huey Wong for their outstanding service on our International Advisory Board and offer a warm welcome to Katsuhiko Ariga, Frances Arnold, Luisa De Cola, Ben Feringa, David MacMillan, W. E. Moerner, Carol Robinson, Timothy Swager, Jack Szostak, and Bert Weckhuysen who have agreed to join us and help shape the future. This issue of Angewandte Chemie illustrates diversity in every sense with Review articles from Philipp Adelhelm an co-workers entitled “from lithium-ion to sodium-ion batteries: advantages, challenges, and surprises”, from Lizhi Zhang et al. on oxygen vacancy-mediated photocatalysis of BiOCl, and from Tomislav Rovis and John C. K. Chu on complementary strategies for directed C(sp3)−H functionalization as well as a Minireview from Rhett Kempe and Fabian Kallmeier on manganese complexes for (de)hydrogenation catalysis. The front cover of the first issue of this year features work on hierarchical hollow nanoprisms based on ultrathin Ni-Fe layered double hydroxide nanosheets with enhanced electrocatalytic activity towards oxygen evolution by Xiong Wen (David) Lou and colleagues, the other covers highlight work by Hans C. Gerritsen, Bert Weckhuysen et al. on the correlation of reactivity with ultrastructure in a single catalyst particle by using integrated transmission electron and single-molecule fluorescence microscopy, by Ken Sakai's group on near-infrared light-driven hydrogen evolution from water using a polypyridyl triruthenium photosensitizer, and by Tianbiao Leo Liu et al. on a π-conjugation extended viologen as a two-electron storage anolyte for total organic aqueous redox flow batteries. Unfortunately, the chemistry community lost a number of highly respected colleagues in 2017, many of which had close ties to Angewandte Chemie including Nobel Laureate George Olah, Günther Wilke, Fritz Vögtle, Gérard Férey, and Gerd Becker as well as two of the giants of organic chemistry namely Gilbert Stork and Ron Breslow (obituaries for the latter pair are in this issue).