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Materials Horizons is a Transformative Journal and Plan S compliant
Impact factor: 13.3*
Time to first decision (all decisions): 10.0 days**
Time to first decision (peer-reviewed only): 33.0 days***
Editorial Board Chair: Martina Stenzel
Indexed in MEDLINE
Open access publishing options available
Expect to be impressed
Horizons research pushes the boundaries of materials science – think new unexpected observations, new directions and new levels of insight.
Put your trust in our team
Our editorial processes are transparent, rigorous, fair and rapid, with an editorial board of leading scientists, guided by a society publisher – we get great work into the world, fast.
Learn something new
Focus articles clarify often misunderstood topic areas, and original research comes with a New Concepts statement which explains the work and its wider significance.
Journal Scope
Materials Horizons is a leading journal for the publication of exceptionally high quality, innovative materials science.The journal places an emphasis on original research that demonstrates a new concept or a new way of thinking (a conceptual advance), rather than primarily reporting technological improvements. However, outstanding articles featuring truly breakthrough developments such as record performance of materials alone may also be published in the journal. For work to be published it must be of significant general interest to our community-spanning readership.
All articles published in Materials Horizons from 2021 onwards will be indexed in MEDLINE©
New Concepts Statement
Materials Horizons Communications must include a separate "new concepts" statement. This statement should be a paragraph of no more than 200 words and should address the following questions:
- What new concept has been demonstrated?
- What differentiates this concept from existing research?
- What additional insight does your work and the underlying concept bring to materials science?
This statement will be seen by editors and reviewers and will help ascertain the significance of the research. The statement should not be a summary of the work reported, as in the article abstract. If the paper is accepted, this statement will also be published. Please note that papers cannot be peer-reviewed without this statement.
Materials Horizons Outstanding Paper Award
In order to recognize some of the outstanding work published in the journal, as well as the authors behind those articles, we annually award a Materials Horizons Outstanding Paper Award. The prize recognises the contributions of all authors and celebrates these exceptional publications.
Find out more
Meet the team
Find out who is on the editorial and advisory boards for the Materials Horizons journal.
Editorial Board Chair:
University of New South Wales, Australia
Scientific editor:
University of Arizona, USA
Scientific editor:
University of Toulouse, France
Scientific editor:
National Institute for Materials Science, Japan
Scientific editor:
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Scientific editor:
Linköping University, Sweden
Scientific editor:
Tianjin University, China
Scientific editor: Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
Scientific editor:
Hanyang University, South Korea
Scientific editor:
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Scientific editor:
University of Cambridge, UK
Editorial board member:
Princeton University, USA
Editorial board member:
University of Southern California, USA
Editorial board member:
University of Pennsylvania, USA
Athina Anastasaki, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Markus Antonietti, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany
David Beljonne, University of Mons, Belgium
Chris Bettinger, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Kanishka Biswas, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, India
Paul Blom, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany
Mischa Bonn, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany
Markus Buehler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Jillian Buriak, University of Alberta, Canada
Moyuan Cao, Nankai University, China
Yong Cao, South China University of Technology, China
Rachel Caruso, University of Melbourne, Australia
Anthony Cheetham, University of Cambridge, UK
Hong Chen, Soochow University, China
Paulette Clancy, Johns Hopkins University, USA
Brandi Cossairt, University of Washington, USA
Dibyendu Das, IISER Kolkata, India
Luisa De Cola, University of Strasbourg, France
Ulrike Diebold, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Mircea Dinca, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Gitti Frey, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Richard Friend, University of Cambridge, UK
Rebecca Gieseking, Brandeis University, USA
Jian Ping Gong, Hokkaido University, Japan
Grace Gu, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Ritu Gupta, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, India
Subi George, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, India
David Haddleton, University of Warwick, UK
Ramanathan Vaidhyanathan, IISER Pune, India
Aleks Vojvodic, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Elizabeth von Hauff, VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Martin Heeney, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia
Jurriaan Huskens, University of Twente, Netherlands
Hiroshi Imahori, Kyoto University, Japan
Lei Jiang, Beihang University, China
Antoine Kahn, Princeton University, USA
Richard Kaner, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Kisuk Kang, Seoul National University, South Korea
Anna Koehler, University of Bayreuth, Germany
Susumu Kitagawa, Kyoto University, Japan
Frederik Krebs, Elite Science, Denmark
Katharina Landfester, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany
Guglielmo Lanzani, Italian Institute of Technology, Italy
Neng Li, Wuhan University of Technology, China
Yan Li, Peking University, China
Darren Lipomi, University of California, San Diego, USA
Bin Liu, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Lynn Yueh Lin Loo, Princeton University, USA
Bettina Lotsch, Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Germany
HongYee Low, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
Eva Malmström Jonsson, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Uttam Manna, Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati, India
Seth Marder, University of Colorado Boulder, USA
Richard Martel, University of Montreal, Canada
Hedi Mattoussi, Florida State University, USA
David Mecerreyes, University of the Basque Country, Spain
Phillip Messersmith, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Catherine Murphy, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA
K S Narayan, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, India
Thuc-Quyen Nguyen, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Markus Niederberger, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Teri Odom, Northwestern University, USA
Wee-Jun Ong, Xiamen University, Malaysia
Moon Jeong Park, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Korea
Marie-Paule Pileni, Pierre and Marie Curie University, France
Vivek Polshettiwar, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), India
C N R Rao, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India
Erin Ratcliff, University of Arizona, USA
Vince Rotello, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
David Scanlon, University College London, UK
Bernd M. Schmidt, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany
Christine Schmidt, University of Florida, USA
Gregory D Scholes, Princeton University, USA
Rachel Segalman, University of California Santa Barbara, USA
Peter Skabara, University of Glasgow, UK
Henry Snaith, University of Oxford, UK
Kazuo Takimaya, RIKEN, Japan
Luisa Torsi, University of Bari, Italy
Aleks Vojvodic, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Aron Walsh, Imperial College London, UK
Mengye Wang, Sun Yat-Sen University, China
Shu Wang, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Xun Wang, Tsinghua University, China
Tanja Weil, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany
Emily Weiss, Northwestern University, USA
David Weitz, Harvard University, USA
Chris Wolverton, Northwestern University, USA
Yi Xie, University of Science and Technology of China, China
Vivian Wing-Wah Yam, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Shannon Yee, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Jihong Yu, Jilin University, China
Shu-Hong Yu, University of Science and Technology of China, China
Aldo J. G. Zarbin, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil
Xiaowei Zhan, Peking University, China
Nan Zhang, Hunan University, China
Dongyuan Zhao, Fudan University, China
Ye Zhou, Shenzhen University, China
Our Community Board is an early career advisory board made up of researchers with expertise across all areas of the journal’s scope. The board members provide feedback and advice regarding journal activities, as well as acting as advocates for the journal.
Hassan R.S. Abedellatif, Cairo University, Egypt
Josh J. Bailey, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland
Rowena Brugge, University of Cambridge, UK
Mingtao Chen, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Pei Cheng, Sichuan University, China
Huijuan Cui, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Kelsey DeFrates, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Xianbiao Fu, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
Xia Guo, Soochow University, China
Olga Guselnikova, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan
Guanjie He, University College London, UK
Edison Ang Huixiang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Yanyan Jiang, Shandong University, China
Haegyum Kim, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
Felix Utama Kosasih, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Aneeya Kumar Samantara, National Institute of Science Education and Research, India
Audrey Laventure, Université de Montréal, Canada
Minah Lee, Korea Institute of Science & Technology (KIST), South Korea
Quan Li, Hubei University, China
Tian-yi Li, University of Science and Technology Beijing, China
Fang-Cheng Liang, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Ivana Qianqi Lin, University of Twente, Netherlands
Penggao Liu, Central South University, China
Raul Marquez-Montes, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Raffaello Mazzaro, University of Bologna, Italy
Danila Merino, POLYMAT, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Spain
Shyamapada Nandi, Vellore Institute of Technology Chennai, India
Xiaojuan Ni, University of Arizona, USA
Subhajit Pal, University of California Berkeley, USA
Robert Pankow, University of Texas at El Paso, USA
Kostas Parkatzidis, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Valerio Piazza, EPFL, Switzerland
Yun Qian, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Li Na Quan, Virginia Tech, USA
Alexandra Ramadan, Oxford University, UK
Vincent Blay Roger, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Hao Shao, Deakin University, Australia
Wen Shi, Sun Yat-sen University, China
Shiv Singh, CSIR-Advanced Materials and Process Research Institute, India
Anna Stejskalová, Harvard University, USA
Jing Xie, Sichuan University, China
Ruijuan Xu, North Carolina State University, USA
Jieun Yang, Kyung Hee University, South Korea
Weilai Yu, Stanford University, USA
Shahid Zaman, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada
Meng Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Qiaobao Zhang, Xiamen University, China
Yunmao Zhang, Xiamen University, China
Shaohua Zhang, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands
Jiadong Zhou, Beijing Institute of Technology, China
Michaela Mühlberg, Executive Editor ORCID 0000-0002-3468-280X
Geraldine Hay, Deputy Editor
Jonathon Watson, Editorial Production Manager
Rose Wedgbury, Development Editor
Natalie Cotterell, Development Editor
Alex Metherell, Senior Publishing Editor ORCID 0000-0003-0672-7940
Matthew Blow, Publishing Editor
Chris Dias, Publishing Editor
Hemna Fathima, Publishing Editor
Rob Hinde, Publishing Editor
Evie Karkera, Publishing Editor
Tamara Kosikova, Publishing Editor
Sophie Mander, Publishing Editor
Carole Martin, Publishing Editor
Kirsty McRoberts, Publishing Editor
Tiffany Rogers, Publishing Editor
Cat Schofield, Publishing Editor
Ash Hyde, Editorial Assistant
Jane Paterson, Publishing Assistant
Sam Keltie, Publisher, Journals, ORCID 0000-0002-9369-8414
Article types
Materials Horizons publishes:
- Communications
- Reviews
- Opinion articles
- Focus articles
- Comments
Communications
All original research published in the journal is in the form of Communication articles. These are exceptionally high-quality and innovative reports that are of significant broad appeal to the materials science community at large. The research presented should provide new insight into the topic and demonstrate a new concept or a new way of thinking (a conceptual advance), rather than primarily reporting technological improvements. However, outstanding articles featuring truly breakthrough developments such as record performance of materials alone may also be published in the journal.
Materials Horizons Communications must include a separate "new concepts" statement. This statement should be a paragraph of no more than 200 words and should address the following questions:
- What new concept has been demonstrated?
- What differentiates this concept from existing research?
- What additional insight does your work and the underlying concept bring to materials science?
This statement will be seen by editors and reviewers and will help ascertain the significance of the research. The statement should not be a summary of the work reported, as in the article abstract. If the paper is accepted, this statement will also be published. Please note that papers cannot be peer-reviewed without this statement.
Although there is no page limit for a Communication, the recommended length is three printed journal pages. Authors are encouraged to provide a succinct and relevant introduction to the research and to consider the use of electronic supplementary information for additional material. Please see below for some examples of exemplar 'new concepts' statements.
See examples 'of new concepts' statements hereReviews, Opinion and Focus articles
These are normally invited by the Editorial Board and editorial office, although suggestions from readers for topics and authors of reviews are welcome.
Reviews, Opinion articles and Focus articles must be high-quality, authoritative, state-of-the-art accounts of the selected research field. They should be timely and add to the existing literature, rather than duplicate existing articles, and should be of general interest to the journal's wide readership.
All Reviews, Opinion articles and Focus articles undergo rigorous peer review, in the same way as regular research papers.
Reviews
Reviews should report a balanced current account of key developments within a particular facet of materials science research, with critical insight into the topic area covered. Simple literature surveys are not suitable for publication. Authors are encouraged to identify areas in which further developments are imminent or of urgent need, and any areas that may be of significance to the community in general. Reviews are typically six to eight printed journal pages in length. Reviews should not contain unpublished original research.
Materials Horizons Reviews must include a separate ‘wider impact’ statement. This statement will be published with accepted articles and should be a paragraph of no more than 200 words that addresses the following questions:
- What key developments in the area of study have been discussed?
- What makes the area of study of significant wider interest?
- What will the future of this field hold, and how will the insight in your review help shape materials science?
Opinion articles
Opinion articles are short (typically 2-4 pages), readable accounts of a current area of interest in materials science which provides a platform for authors to give their personal or speculative viewpoint on a given subject and its future development. Opinion articles should bring significant and valuable insights to the field and stimulate discussion and counter-opinion. By their nature they will not be reviews of a field of materials science, instead, the focus should be on the perspective of the author.
Focus articles
Focus articles are educational articles that can take the form of either an editorial or a review article. They are designed to address topic areas that are often misunderstood or require greater explanation.
Comments
Comments and Replies are a medium for the discussion and exchange of scientific opinions between authors and readers concerning material published in Materials Horizons.
For publication, a Comment should present an alternative analysis of and/or a new insight into the previously published material. Any Reply should further the discussion presented in the original article and the Comment. Comments and Replies that contain any form of personal attack are not suitable for publication.
Comments that are acceptable for publication will be forwarded to the authors of the work being discussed, and these authors will be given the opportunity to submit a Reply. The Comment and Reply will both be subject to rigorous peer review in consultation with the journal’s Editorial Board where appropriate. The Comment and Reply will be published together.
Submission and assessment process
On submission to the journal, all manuscripts are initially assessed by a team of professional Publishing Editors who have a wide range of scientific backgrounds. They make an assessment of whether the manuscript may be suitable for the journal, based on the scope and very high significance and broad general interest criteria required for publication. Publishing Editors are supported in this decision making by our academic Scientific Editors who are members of our Editorial Board. Only manuscripts that are successful during these initial assessments will be sent for full peer review. Full details of the initial assessment process can be found with our processes and policies.
The journal follows a single-blind peer review process and articles are typically sent to at least two independent reviewers for evaluation. Professional Publishing Editors are responsible for peer review and associated editorial decisions. The team are guided by our Editorial Board who set the scientific standards and guidelines for the journal. Our Editorial Board are all leading scientists who together have expertise across the breadth of materials science.
Journal specific guidelines
We provide some general considerations on suitability for publication of original research in the journal:
- Articles that challenge current thinking, present new unexpected observations, create new directions in materials science or introduce a new understanding of a topic. For example, new mechanisms, new synthetic procedures or simplifying the current challenging or lengthy synthetic method, new molecular design guidelines, novel properties that have not been observed before, novel applications
- Articles with no new concept, but truly exceptional (top 5% in field) and surprising results are welcome
- We consider that a new (nano)material can be equated with a new concept if potentially surprising performance/properties are reported
- Demonstration of use of a (nano)material in an application is not a requirement, but could provide further evidence for the impact of work
- Reports on known (nano)materials are acceptable if;
- the article reports unexpected combinations with other materials or
- the article reports a new unexpected application, new observations or physical properties, etc., that provide insight into molecular design rules/guidelines
- Authors should ensure that there is sufficient information on (nano)material synthesis and characterisation in the article or ESI for the work to be repeatable. If it is not present then the editors will return the article to the authors
- Articles that contain some or wholly theoretical/computational studies are welcome.
- They should contain a discussion that compares the study to experimental data, if this exists in the literature
- Authors must provide sufficient information to enable readers to reproduce any computational results
- The computational methods used in the study should be included in either the article or the supplementary information
- If the software was used for calculations and is generally available, it must be properly cited in the notes and references. References to the methods upon which the software is based must also be provided
- Computational results obtained using methods, parameters, or input data that are not adequately described in the manuscript or in the referenced literature are not acceptable for publication
- Articles that do not put into context the importance of the study are not suitable for peer review in the journal. Articles with no comparison to state of the art (if available) are not suitable for peer review in the journal
- Articles that simply report a combination of already known things with no surprising results are not suitable for peer review in the journal
Open access publishing options
Materials Horizons is a hybrid (transformative) journal and gives authors the choice of publishing their research either via the traditional subscription-based model or instead by choosing our gold open access option. Find out more about our Transformative Journals. which are Plan S compliant.
Gold open access
For authors who want to publish their article gold open access, Materials Horizons charges an article processing charge (APC) of £2,750 (+ any applicable tax). Our APC is all-inclusive and makes your article freely available online immediately, permanently, and includes your choice of Creative Commons licence (CC BY or CC BY-NC) at no extra cost. It is not a submission charge, so you only pay if your article is accepted for publication.
Learn more about publishing open access.
Read & Publish
If your institution has a Read & Publish agreement in place with the Royal Society of Chemistry, APCs for gold open access publishing in Materials Horizons may already be covered.
Use our journal finder to check if your institution has an open access agreement with us.
Please use your official institutional email address to submit your manuscript and check you are assigned as the corresponding author; this helps us to identify if you are eligible for Read & Publish or other APC discounts.
Traditional subscription model
Authors can also publish in Materials Horizons via the traditional subscription model without needing to pay an APC. Articles published via this route are available to institutions and individuals who subscribe to the journal. Our standard licence allows you to make the accepted manuscript of your article freely available after a 12-month embargo period. This is known as the green route to open access.
Readership information
Materials Horizons is a core journal for academic, government and industrial scientists involved in all aspects of materials research.
Subscription information
Online only 2024: ISSN 2051-6355, £2,913 / $4,984
*2022 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2023)
**The median time from submission to first decision including manuscripts rejected without peer review from the previous calendar year
***The median time from submission to first decision for peer-reviewed manuscripts from the previous calendar year
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