The First 10 Years …

Dear Readers, We are proud to celebrate the 10th volume of Macromolecular Materials & Engineering (cf. Figure 1), starting with the issue you are reading just now. Back in the year 2000, the first issue of the then newly launched journal was published after significant reorganization of coverage and content of the Wiley-VCH polymer science journals. MME was intended to become a leading journal in the field of “modern polymeric materials and processing, in industry and academia”, as was written in our inaugural Editorial. The changing cover of Macromolecular Materials & Engineering, from 2000 to the present. Since then, Macromolecular Materials & Engineering indeed has enjoyed significant growth and development, and has become one of the indispensable journals dedicated to advanced polymeric materials. The polymer science community's interest in the published results is also documented by an ISI Impact Factor that has reached and stabilized around values of 1.5. While MME covers a broad variety of topics, a special selection are those ‘All-Time-Best’ contributions shown in Table 1, containing the most accessed articles since Macromolecular Materials & Engineering has been launched. Table 2, on the other hand, shows more recent trends by presenting those articles most often downloaded in 2008, again written by leading experts in the field. Georg Hinrichsen et al.1 Rodney Andrews et al.2 Rolf Mülhaupt et al.3 Mukundan Thelakkat4 Akane Okada et al.5 Christian Decker et al.6 Jozsef Karger-Kocsis et al.7 Serge Bourbigot et al.8 Manfred Wilhelm9 Norbert Moszner et al.10 Philippe Dubois et al.11 Sigbritt Karlsson et al.12 Katharina Landfester et al.13 Mohamed Naceur Belgacem et al.14 Masahiro Ohshima et al.15 Manfred Klüppel et al.16 Bernd Bruchmann17 Peter Van Puyvelde et al.18 Zoubeida Ounaies et al.19 Bernhard Schartel et al.20 2009 will see a continuation of the series of invited Reviews and Feature Articles authored by emerging younger scientists as well as by more senior experts on the chosen topics. A further measure to ensure the highest quality of published content is a very strict selection process: A significant part of submitted articles is rejected already during editorial pre-screening, and only the most interesting contributions then are sent to our referees before a final editorial decision is made. As a result of this process, we can accept only ca. 35% of all submitted manuscripts. Macromolecular Materials & Engineering enjoys the company of six sister journals within the family of Macromolecular Journals: Macromolecular Chemistry & Physics is the founding journal with the longest tradition and experience in the field. Today it also covers the work of young talents, presents critical analyses of recent trends, and highlights and emphasizes the importance of breakthrough research results. Macromolecular Rapid Communications celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2009 and has developed into one of the leading journals in polymer science that combines speed and immediate impact with highest-priority results from a truly multidisciplinary range of topics. The other sister journals of MME are dedicated to more specialized topics, including “Bioscience”, “Theory & Simulations”, and “Reaction Engineering” − all publishing newest and critically selected original research results as well as Reviews and Feature Articles. To name a few more of the recent highlights from these journals: Macromolecular Chemistry & Physics has launched a very successful Special Article Series, dedicated to “New Frontiers in Functional Polymers”, guest-edited by Ben Zhong Tang. The youngest family member, Macromolecular Reaction Engineering, has received its first Immediacy Index in 2008 and directly entered the top 10 by Immediacy Index of all journals publishing original research in polymer science which promises a very good first Impact Factor (to be announced in June 2009). Macromolecular Theory & Simulations enjoyed a significant increase in Impact Factor to a present value of 1.792, whereas the Impact Factor of Macromolecular Bioscience increased to an all-time high of 2.831. And last but not least, the selected international meetings presented in Macromolecular Symposia include, among other, the ACS conference “MACROMEX” (guest-edited by Krzysztof Matyjaszewski) and the IUPAC symposium on “MacroMolecular Complexes” in Fukuoka (guest-edited by Naoki Toshima). Wiley's Global Polymer Journals program of course does not only include the family of Macromolecular Journals, but also such prestigious titles as Journal of Polymer Science, Part A and B, Polymer International, Plasma Processes & Polymers, and many other top journals (see Figure 2). In 2007, four of the top 10 journals (by Impact Factor) publishing original research have been Wiley Journals: Macromolecular Rapid Communications, Journal of Polymer Science, Part A, Macromolecular Bioscience and Plasma Processes & Polymers. Wiley's World of Polymers. One year ago, in January 2008, Materials Views, the global Wiley Materials Science news section, has been launched. Since then it has been published monthly online and in print (in more than 20 of Wiley-Blackwell's materials and polymer science journals), and since May it is complemented by MaterialsViews.com − the online platform bringing you the most recent news on Materials Science, information about books and journals in the program, and much more (see Figure 3). Interest of readers, users, and featured authors in this new source of information on Materials Science has been growing continuously, and this service will be further expanded throughout 2009 by the inclusion of even more journal titles and daily news. An impression of MaterialsViews.com.