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Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry is a Transformative Journal and Plan S compliant
Impact factor: 3.2*
Time to first decision (all decisions): 14.0 days**
Time to first decision (peer-reviewed only): 19.0 days***
Chair: Anthony Davis
Indexed in MEDLINE
CiteScore: 6.4****
Best Impact Factor Quartile (SCIE Category 2022): Q2 (Chemistry, Organic)
Open access publishing options available
Journal scope
Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry (OBC) publishes original and high impact research and reviews in organic chemistry.
We welcome research that shows new or significantly improved protocols or methodologies in total synthesis, synthetic methodology or physical and theoretical organic chemistry as well as research that shows a significant advance in the organic chemistry or molecular design aspects of chemical biology, catalysis, supramolecular and macromolecular chemistry, theoretical chemistry, mechanism-oriented physical organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry or natural products.
Articles published in the journal should report new work which makes a highly-significant impact in the field. Routine and incremental work is generally not suitable for publication in the journal.
More details about key areas of our scope are below. In all cases authors should include in their article clear rationale for why their research has been carried out.
Organic synthesis
We welcome important research in all areas of organic synthesis, including studies on small organic molecules and biomolecules, and studies that report purely synthetic work without biological data. Total or multistep syntheses should report new or improved strategies or methods, or a more efficient route to the target compound.
Methodology studies should show a significant improvement on known methods. Research that extends the known methodology to a different class of compounds is generally not suitable unless that class is significantly different in scope to previously reported methodology. Where methods are directed towards a narrow range of structures, the importance of these targets must be clearly justified.
Physical and theoretical organic chemistry
We welcome studies that report new models of reactivity, selectivity, bonding or structure, or new computational methods and have relevance for the design of subsequent experiments. That relevance should be clearly justified in the paper. Relevance is perhaps most clearly demonstrated by the description of testable predictions derived from the results of the reported theoretical work; the tests of these predictions could be contained in the same paper in which the predictions are described. Computational research that merely reproduces experimental data is not suitable for OBC.
Chemical biology
We welcome articles that report new or improved methodologies in the chemical aspects of chemical biology, including design, development and use of chemical tools, chemical studies of biomolecules such as carbohydrates, proteins and nucleic acids or biological processes such as protein-protein interactions and epigenetics, and chemical methods such as imaging and labelling techniques.
Catalysis
We welcome studies on catalysis, including metal catalysis, organocatalysis, and biocatalysis, which present a significant organic chemistry advance. The application of a new catalyst to a known reaction must present a significant methodological advance. However, studies showcasing routine modification in the catalyst structure for a known reaction or the preparation of a compound library by a known catalytic reaction followed by routine photophysical or biological studies are typically not suitable.
Theoretical studies that provide significant new mechanistic insights into synthetic or biological catalysts are welcome. Routine biochemistry studies of catalytic mechanisms, for instance, routine studies using tools such as site-directed mutagenesis, are not typically suitable.
Supramolecular, macromolecular and organic materials
We welcome studies that report important new work in the molecular design of supramolecular or macromolecular compounds or organic materials either with a strong component in organic synthesis or with novel organic structural features. You may wish to consider our materials journals for articles outside this scope.
Sensors
We publish articles describing sensors for ions and/or molecules provided that they
- address targets and situations of practical relevance and
- represent significant and demonstrable improvements on previous methodology
In particular, sensors for species in artificial surroundings (for example, hydrophilic ions in organic solvents) will not typically be acceptable for publication.
Medicinal chemistry
We welcome studies that report significant synthetic or bioorganic research that is directed towards medicinal chemistry applications. Studies that show routine syntheses accompanied by biological testing are generally not suitable for OBC. Our companion journal, RSC Medicinal Chemistry, is more suitable for articles that report significant research in core medicinal chemistry disciplines.
Natural products
We welcome articles that report new and interesting syntheses of natural products (see Organic Synthesis guidelines above) or chemical studies of biosynthetic pathways. Isolation or identification studies are welcome when the compound being reported
- has a novel structural class with unreported carbon skeleton, unusual functional groups or unusual modifications and/or
- displays a potent or unexpected biological activity or an unexpected mechanism of action.
Routine isolation studies are not suitable for OBC.
Author benefits
- One of the fastest organic chemistry journals* - with an average receipt to first decision time of just 13.8 days for Communications and 19.8 days for Papers.
- Flexible submission format; submit in any reasonable format, and no template required
- Optional accepted manuscript publication; have the unedited version of your article published shortly after acceptance
- Easy submission and manuscript tracking online
- Choice of submission routes; authors can choose either the Cambridge editorial office or submission to an associate editor
- Unlimited free colour, both online and in print
- High exposure; top papers highlighted in the wider scientific press
- Broadest organic audience; synthetic, physical and biomolecular
- Indexed in MEDLINE and other major databases
*Based on the average time from receipt to first decision for manuscripts submitted in 2020.
Meet the team
Find out who is on the editorial and advisory boards for the Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry journal.
Chair
Anthony Davis, University of Bristol, UK
Associate editors
Christian Hackenberger, Leibniz-Institut für Molekulare Pharmakologie and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany
Katrina Jolliffe, University of Sydney, Australia
Motomu Kanai, University of Tokyo, Japan
Lei Liu, Tsinghua University, China
Xiaohua Liu, Sichuan University, China
Santanu Mukherjee, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
Scott Silverman, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Cristina Trujillo, The University of Manchester, UK
Editorial board members
Ivan Huc, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
S.S.V Ramasastry, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, India
Corinna Schindler, University of Michigan, USA
Judy I-Chia Wu, University of Houston, USA
Igor Alabugin, Florida State University, USA
Gonçalo Bernardes, University of Cambridge, UK
Shunsuke Chiba, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Andre Cobb, Kings College London, UK
Steven Cobb, Durham University, UK
Ratmir Derda, University of Alberta, Canada
Antonio Echavarren, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain
Ben Feringa, University of Groningen, Netherlands
Amar Flood, Indiana University Bloomington, USA
Carmen Galan, University of Bristol, UK
Jason Harper, University of New South Wales, Australia
Elizabeth Krenske, University of Queensland, Australia
Mahesh Lakshman, The City College of New York, USA
Shih-Yuan Liu, Boston College, USA
Geraldine Masson, Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles (CNRS), France
Elizabeth New, University of Sydney, Australia
Dhevalapally Ramachary, University of Hyderabad, India
Paolo Scrimin, University of Padova, Italy
Oliver Seitz, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
Jay Siegel, University of Zürich, Switzerland
Corey Stephenson, University of Michigan, USA
Dean Tantillo, University of California Davis, USA
Mark Taylor, University of Toronto, Canada
Georgios Vassilikogiannakis, University of Crete, Greece
Helma Wennemers, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Peter Wipf, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Shuli You, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, China
Jian Zhou, East China Normal University, China
Katie Lim, Executive Editor
Jack Washington, Deputy Editor
Daniel Robertshaw, Development Editor
Sarah Whitehouse, Editorial Production Manager
Nicola Burton, Publishing Editor
Tom Cozens, Publishing Editor
Katie Fernandez, Publishing Editor
Ryan Kean, Publishing Editor
Roxane Owen, Publishing Editor, ORCID 0000-0002-4553-233X
Andrea Whiteside, Publishing Assistant
Sam Keltie, Publisher, Journals, ORCID 0000-0002-9369-8414
Open access publishing options
Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry 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, Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry charges an article processing charge (APC) of £2,500 (+ 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 Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry 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 Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry 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
Academic and industrial scientists working in organic chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, chemical biology and physical organic chemistry.
Subscription information
OBC is part of RSC Gold and Core Chemistry subscription packages.
Online only 2024: ISSN 1477-0539, £5,370 / $9,638
*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
****CiteScore™ 2022 available at www.scopus.com/sources
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