Peer review under the responsibility of Chinese Materials Research Society
The
journal Progress in Natural Science: Materials International, sponsored
and organized by both Chinese Materials Research Society (C-MRS) and
International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS), published
its first issue in November 2010.
Progress
in Natural Science: Materials International provides scientists and
engineers throughout the world with a central vehicle for the exchange
and dissemination of basic theoretical studies and applied research of
advanced materials. The emphasis is placed on original research, both
analytical and experimental, which is of permanent interest to engineers
and scientists, covering all aspects of new materials and technologies,
such as: energy and environmental materials; advanced structural
materials; advanced transportation materials, functional and electronic
materials; nano-scale and amorphous materials; health and biological
materials; materials modeling and simulation; materials
characterization; and so on. The latest research achievements and
innovative papers in basic theoretical studies and applied research of
material science will be carefully selected and promptly reported. Thus,
the aim of this Journal is to serve the global materials science and
technology community with the latest research findings.
As a service to readers, an international bibliography of recent publications in advanced materials is published bimonthly.
Article types
Progress in Natural Science: Materials International accepts review papers, research papers, and letters.
Research papers:
• A research paper presents the results of investigations on a relevant subject matter.
• The length should not normally exceed 6000 words and 8 diagrams - this corresponds to 6-8 journal pages.
Review articles:
•
A review article succinctly reviews recent progress on a specific
subject of active research. It should summarize the current state of
knowledge of the topic by discussing the findings presented in recent
research papers.
• The length should not normally exceed 8000 words and 15 diagrams - this corresponds to approximately 10 journal pages.
Letters:
•
A letter informs the scientific community about recent research, which
the authors wish to publish as quickly as possible, without writing a
detailed full length research paper. The activity of IUMRS is also
included.
• The length should not normally exceed 2000 words and 4 diagrams - this corresponds to approximately 4 journal pages.
Peer review
This
journal follows a single anonymized review process. Your submission
will initially be assessed by our editors to determine suitability for
publication in this journal. If your submission is deemed suitable, it
will typically be sent to a minimum of two reviewers for an independent
expert assessment of the scientific quality. The decision as to whether
your article is accepted or rejected will be taken by our editors.
Read more about peer review.
Our editors are not involved in making decisions about papers which:
they have written themselves.
have been written by family members or colleagues.
relate to products or services in which they have an interest.
Any
such submissions will be subject to the journal's usual procedures and
peer review will be handled independently of the editor involved and
their research group. Read more about editor duties.
Authors
may submit a formal appeal request to the editorial decision, provided
it meets all the requirements and follows the procedure outlined in
Elsevier’s Appeal Policy. Only one appeal per submission will be
considered and the appeal decision will be final.
Special issues and article collections
The
peer review process for special issues and article collections follows
the same process as outlined above for regular submissions, except, a
guest editor may send the submissions out to the reviewers and may
recommend a decision to the journal editor. The journal editor oversees
the peer review process of all special issues and article collections to
ensure the high standards of publishing ethics and responsiveness are
respected and is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance
or rejection of articles.
Open access
We refer you to our open access information page to learn about open access options for this journal.
Ethics and policies
Ethics in publishing
Authors must follow ethical guidelines stated in Elsevier's Publishing Ethics Policy.
Submission declaration
When authors submit an article to an Elsevier journal it is implied that:
the
work described has not been published previously except in the form of a
preprint, an abstract, a published lecture, academic thesis or
registered report. See our policy on multiple, redundant or concurrent
publication.
the article is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
the
article's publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or
explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried
out.
if
accepted, the article will not be published elsewhere in the same form,
in English or in any other language, including electronically, without
the written consent of the copyright-holder.
To verify compliance with our journal publishing policies, we may check your manuscript with our screening tools.
Authorship
All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following:
The conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.
Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
Final approval of the version to be submitted.
Authors
should appoint a corresponding author to communicate with the journal
during the editorial process. All authors should agree to be accountable
for all aspects of the work to ensure that the questions related to the
accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately
investigated and resolved.
Changes to authorship
The
editors of this journal generally will not consider changes to
authorship once a manuscript has been submitted. It is important that
authors carefully consider the authorship list and order of authors and
provide a definitive author list at original submission.
The policy of this journal around authorship changes:
All authors must be listed in the manuscript and their details entered into the submission system.
Any
addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship
list should only be made prior to acceptance, and only if approved by
the journal editor.
Requests
to change authorship should be made by the corresponding author, who
must provide the reason for the request to the journal editor with
written confirmation from all authors, including any authors being added
or removed, that they agree with the addition, removal or
rearrangement.
All
requests to change authorship must be submitted using this form.
Requests which do not comply with the instructions outlined in the form
will not be considered.
Only
in exceptional circumstances will the journal editor consider the
addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors post acceptance.
Publication of the manuscript may be paused while a change in authorship request is being considered.
Any
authorship change requests approved by the journal editor will result
in a corrigendum if the manuscript has already been published.
Any
unauthorized authorship changes may result in the rejection of the
article, or retraction, if the article has already been published.
Declaration of competing interests
All
authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with
other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence or
bias their work. Examples of potential competing interests include:
Employment
Consultancies
Stock ownership
Honoraria
Paid expert testimony
Patent applications or registrations
Grants or any other funding
Affiliation with the journal as an Editor or Advisory Board Member
The declarations tool should always be completed.
Authors with a journal affiliation to declare should enter the following text under “Other Activities” within the declarations tool and should inform the journal and publisher prior to completing the submission process:
Given
their role as [insert journal role title], [insert your name] had no
involvement in the peer-review of this article and has no access to
information regarding its peer-review. Full responsibility for the editorial process for this article was delegated to another journal editor.
Editorial
disclosure statements will be included as a footnote and/or in the
declaration of competing interest section of the article.
Authors with no competing interests to declare should select the option "I have nothing to declare".
The
resulting Word document containing your declaration should be uploaded
at the "attach/upload files" step in the submission process. It is
important that the Word document is saved in the .doc/.docx file format.
