In 2018, we welcome the 52nd anniversary of the Journal of Materials Science (JMS) and already publish the 54th volume. We thank all the authors, reviewers and readers, whose collaborative efforts have made JMS a leading journal in materials science.

As a Chinese scholar and an old friend of China, we have been engaged in materials science research for more than 30 years, and we know that JMS has been loved by Chinese readers for decades. There are numerous loyal and devoted readers and authors of JMS in China. As one of the earliest academic journals in materials science—JMS was founded by Robert Cahn in 1966—JMS has played a very important role in guiding Chinese researchers to the forefront of materials science. We believe that most scholars in China have the same realization.

We have noticed over the years that the number of manuscript submissions from China has significantly increased, and the concurrent increasing quality of the manuscripts has led to a greater number of published articles from Chinese institutions, especially after 2016, as shown in Fig. 1a. Chinese authors have also contributed an impressive citation rate for the JMS. In the top ten cited papers published in JMS in 2017 and 2018, there are five papers each year contributed by authors from Chinese institutions. Another indicator of the increased quality of papers from China is the number of papers being nominated for the annual Cahn Prize. In 2018, six nominated papers among a total of 12 had first authors from Chinese institutions. The papers encompass a wide range of topics including “Controllably degradable transient electronic antennas based on water-soluble PVA/TiO2 films” [1] and “Perovskite quantum dots as fluorescent materials for multi-colored lighting” [2].

Figure 1
figure 1

The statistics of published papers in Journal of Materials Science from 2009 to 2018

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The increased quantity and quality of papers are the beneficial results of the continuous development of the Chinese economy, the government emphasis on and investment in science and technology, and the materials scientists’ interest and understanding in research. With such a large number of potential materials science contributors in China, we believe that it will be a source to continuously energize the Journal, increase the impact among the researchers’ minds and provide a better literature research service to scholars working on material science.

After decades of exploration and development in the field of materials science, new materials continue to emerge. In addition to the traditional structural materials, new functional materials and intelligent materials have brought new opportunities to the development of science and technology. As a result, JMS has broadened its scope. In its first decade, JMS mainly published work on structural materials, but JMS rapidly expanded to materials for life sciences, energy materials and other new and developing materials fields. We believe that the fundamental basis of materials science in different fields is interlinked. The materials must meet the application requirements no matter what kind of material it is. Therefore, we must explore the factors that affect the material properties, obtain the controlling parameters and mechanism, form the theory to guide the application and thus continuously improve the materials knowledge base. For this purpose, the editors of JMS pay special attention to papers that are innovative and contribute to the understanding of materials science. Such papers provide scientists with deeper insight into the field and enhance their understanding. This leads to the ultimate goal of using the knowledge for the benefit of everyone.

A special benefit of publishing in JMS is that there are no page limitations for your manuscript; JMS provides the space that you need and recognizes that experimental method is not to be relegated to supplementary material—it is a fundamental component of the scientific process. This allows authors the freedom to describe and discuss their research in detail. The Journal also publishes review articles and we encourage any scientists who are interested in authoring a review to contact the editors prior to submission so that we can assist in timely publication. A recent example of a review paper is “A review of the preparation and application of magnetic nanoparticles for surface-enhanced Raman scattering” by Lai et al. [3].

We also hope that readers in China will make suggestions to our journal to help us to improve our service to the community. Remember, our publisher, Springer Nature, provides a cost-effective service to help our authors polish their manuscript [4].

The mission of JMS is fast decision, broad topics, high citation and maximum visibility. We editors are working hard to give a quick decision for every manuscript, with an average of 17 days from receipt to first decision, for helping the author to publish the research or reselect another journal. The broad topics of JMS are concerned with the relationship between structure, properties and uses of materials, including metals, ceramics, glasses, polymers, energy materials, electrical materials, composite materials, fibers, nanostructured materials, nanocomposites and biological and biomedical materials. The citation count of the Journal has been increasing year by year and is in the top 20 for number of citations in the category MATERIALS SCIENCE. The impact factor is now 2.993 with 44,985 citations in 2018. Furthermore, the Journal is actively taking steps to provide maximum visibility for an authors’ paper. ALL JMS papers are freely available to ALL scientists through the SharedIt link mechanism—there is NO embargo time with SharedIt.

China is a rapidly developing country and is attracting the attention of the whole world. Chinese research is approaching or has already reached the frontier in many areas and will make important contributions to the development of materials science throughout the world. The important contributions of Chinese scholars in the field of materials science have been recognized by the Journal of Materials Science through the appointment of our first two Chinese Editors. Therefore, we encourage Chinese materials scholars to submit their excellent research to the Journal of Materials Science where it will receive the respect it deserves. For our colleagues working outside China, we emphasize that the converse is also true—if you are interested in introducing Chinese scholars to your own research, there is no better way than through the Journal of Materials Science!

Now we are also looking forward to seeing Chinese authors joining our “1000-citations club.” Springer has combined with Nature: Springer Nature is our publisher. We believe this merger will stimulate the development for the Journal in the future.