Dr. Cranford: The scope of Matter is very broad, encompassing all aspects of Materials Science, from atomistic and nanoscale to more applied, macro-scale systems and devices. It is very difficult to narrow down, due to the diverse nature of research in the field, as well as the audience. Great materials science research comes out of Chemistry departments, Physics departments, and Engineering. Every field seems to touch materials is someway, and we want to appeal to everyone… not just photovoltaic metamaterials (for example!). If it has materials innovation and conceptual novelty in the work, we are interested! Even if a topic is trendy or popular, we look for long-term contributions to the field. What makes the work exciting? Will it be appealing to a wide audience? If it is great science, and it is materials, we want it for Matter.

Once the editorial team is in place (currently it's just me, so things have been slower than we plan), and the production schedule fixed, we are hoping a publication time of approximately 3 months from submission to publication. Clearly, this depends on the type of study and reviewing process. We allow one week from submission to send to peer review (finding the right reviewers takes time!). Then its three weeks to review. We then allow three to four weeks for revisions (more if necessary). Then, assuming the paper it accepted, about a month for production.

Like Chem and Joule, Matter anticipates on publishing only 10 research articles per issue. Assuming we reach our target submission rates, we will have an acceptance rate of approximately 8% to 10%.