Polymer Reaction Engineering and beyond

Abstract

In 2013, Macromolecular Reaction Engineering (MRE) received a new record number of submissions with a more than 20% increase compared with the previous year, and also achieved an ISI Impact Factor of 1.638. These facts, together with numerous positive and encouraging comments from leading experts in the field, confirm that MRE is the most established journal for the polymer reaction engineering community and remains the only high-quality publication dedicated to academic as well as industrial research in this area. As shown in Table 1, the list of most downloaded publications from 2012/2013 includes the names of several researchers of the highest reputation in the field of polymer reaction engineering. It also shows that the article that has received the highest interest from our readership is a dedicated cooperation between the group of Christopher Barner-Kowollik at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the group of Klaus-Dieter Hungenberg at BASF SE in Ludwigshafen − a perfect example of the combined efforts of academic and industrial research that are essential in this field. Despite the established position within its core community, MRE needs to reflect the undeniable expansion into neighboring scientific fields of the concerned research institutions and, consequently, also a broadening of the topical focus of papers submitted to the journal. As a first consequence of these ongoing changes, MRE published two special issues in 2013 dedicated to “Recent Advances in Synthesis and Characterization of Adhesives” and “Science and Technology of Bio-Inspired Adhesives”, both guest-edited by Hadi Izadi and Alexander Penlidis (University of Waterloo). In 2014, this trend will be continued by the publication of special issues on “Reactive Extrusion/Polymer Modification” (guest-edited by Marianna Kontopoulou, Queen's University) and “Mathematical Tools and Approaches” (guest-edited by Jose Carlos Pinto, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), accompanied by ongoing special article series featuring recent results in New Technologies, Polyolefins, and Sensors and Process Control. The dedicated team of in-house editors aims to offer the best possible services to our authors, referees and readers, with the additional benefit of a new online submission and refereeing system introduced in spring 2013. Nonetheless, the number of submitted papers by far exceeds what can possibly be published or even sent to referees. Therefore, rejection rates for MRE need to remain high, reflecting the strict selection criteria already applied during editorial pre-screening as well as for the final editorial decision on papers that have qualified for external peer-reviewing. Furthermore, all Special Issues, invited Review and Feature Articles, and also unsolicited contributions receiving the editorial VIP label are additionally promoted on the journal homepage (http://mre-journal.de) and on our news portal MaterialsViews (http://materialsviews.com). Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank those people indispensable for Macromolecular Reaction Engineering: our authors for sending their exciting new research results and their interest in the journal, our referees for helping us to identify and further improve the best contributions, and the members of the advisory boards for their encouraging support and advice. Stefan Spiegel Editor