Scientific community articles within Nature Materials

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  • Editorial |

    British and European science shall each benefit from continued UK membership of the European Union.

  • Editorial |

    The Innovation Forum on Quantum Technologies aims to help academics start technology companies.

  • Editorial |

    To aid the reproducibility of published results for photovoltaic devices, from now on we will ask authors of relevant manuscripts to complete a checklist of key technical information that must be reported.

  • Editorial |

    For authors who have published in this journal, success rates of getting manuscripts peer-reviewed and published do not correlate with submission history or academic seniority.

  • Editorial |

    The ongoing European Union fiscal crisis has taken its toll on research and innovation across several member states. A number of initiatives aim to boost technological innovation as a tool for increasing wealth.

  • Interview |

    Richard Murray of Innovate UK explains to Nature Materials how innovation derived from research findings can boost the production of wealth.

    • Maria Maragkou

  • Interview |

    Costas Fotakis, the Greek Alternate Minister for Research and Innovation, explains to Nature Materials how he plans to improve the country's research and innovation landscape under the constraints of austerity.

    • Maria Maragkou

  • Editorial |

    The outcome of the UK election leaves science challenged on at least three fronts.

  • Editorial |

    In the nuclear industry, safety considerations rely on our ability to understand and control the behaviour of the relevant materials over a range of length and time scales.

  • Interview |

    The incident at Fukushima Daiichi brought materials in the nuclear industry into the spotlight. Nature Materials talks to Tatsuo Shikama, Director of the International Research Centre for Nuclear Materials, Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, about the current situation.

    • John Plummer

  • Editorial |

    This year we will offer the option of double-blind peer review and introduce a reproducibility checklist for life sciences articles that helps authors adhere to data-reporting standards.

  • Editorial |

    Scotland's independence debate saw too many scientists absent from the public square.

  • Editorial |

    Density functional theory, invented half a century ago, now supplies one of the most convenient and popular shortcuts for dealing with systems of many electrons. It was born in a fertile period when theoretical physics stretched from abstruse quantum field theory to practical electrical engineering.

  • Editorial |

    Winds of change blow through research centres and universities operating in the Middle East.

  • Interview |

    Jean M. J. Fréchet, vice-president for research at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), talked to Nature Materials about the achievements of this institution since its foundation in 2009 and its contribution to shaping research attitudes in Saudi Arabia.

    • Luigi Martiradonna

  • Commentary |

    The Middle East is rich in human and natural resources, but many of its countries need a cultural and scientific transformation to reach worldwide recognition in education, research and economic productivity. Several institutions are making a positive impact, kindling hope for a successful 'science spring'.

    • Ahmed H. Zewail

  • Editorial |

    Freshly re-elected, there seem to be few radical changes ahead for Angela Merkel's government. Her politics have been successful, but will Germany's neighbours start to benefit too?

  • Editorial |

    French research requires a deeper reform with a vision — instead of limited organizational changes that do not provide a new competitive impulse to further develop research capabilities.

  • Editorial |

    As with the ongoing debate on the degree of wetting transparency of supported graphene, transparency in both pre- and post-publication peer review is a contentious concept.

  • Editorial |

    The discovery of catalysts that dictated polymer sterochemistry, which earned a Nobel prize for Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta 50 years ago, initiated the modern age of controlled polymer synthesis.

  • Editorial |

    Underfunding, chronic structural deficiencies and lack of proper evaluation are acutely harming Greek science. The only way forward is to increase investment in human capital and infrastructure, coupled with organizational reforms and a change of government attitude towards research.

  • Editorial |

    The decision by the European Council to lower the expenditure ceiling for the next seven-year framework programme comes during a time of great debate on the distribution of research funding. The selection of two flagship projects that will each receive €500 million over the next decade raises further questions.

  • Editorial |

    The journal impact factor is a good predictor of the quality of journals as measured by citations to primary research articles. It is, however, a poor indicator of citations to specific papers or of the future performance of individual researchers.

  • Editorial |

    President Obama's re-election was welcome news to many scientists — but it won't release the fiscal vice that's taking a grip of US research spending.

  • Editorial |

    As the old 'publish or perish' adage is brought into question, additional research-impact indices, known as altmetrics, are offering new evaluation alternatives. But such metrics may need to adjust to the evolution of science publishing.

  • Editorial |

    François Hollande, the new French president, has an opportunity to correct and consolidate five years of frantic research reforms under Nicolas Sarkozy.

  • Editorial |

    The next European Union funding scheme, which is pending European Council and Parliament approval by summer 2013, will be dedicated to both research and innovation.

  • Editorial |

    Open-access journals are publishing at a pace that is not much faster than some recently launched subscription-based journals. The swiftest and surest route to full open-access publishing is then for funders, institutions and publishers to agree on the conditions for self-archiving in publicly accessible repositories.

  • Editorial |

    To ensure that their work gets the funding and the attention it deserves, scientists need to engage with different stakeholders. Concepts from marketing could help them increase the impact of their efforts.

  • Commentary |

    Strong competition and funding squeezes require scientists to look for ways to increase their profile and impact within and beyond the scientific community. Online tools and services can help them communicate and publicize their research more effectively.

    • Martin Fenner

  • Interview |

    Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and author of a blog and a recent book titled Marketing for Scientists, talked to Nature Materials about his views on the progress of scientific business from Versailles in the 1700s to modern days.

    • Christian Martin

  • Interview |

    Tony Hickson, Managing Director of Technology Transfer at Imperial Innovations, talked to Nature Materials about their efforts in stimulating academics at Imperial College London to disclose their inventions, and about trends in the patent system and the challenges of patenting early-stage technology.

    • Christian Martin

  • Editorial |

    Facing budget cuts, the UK's research councils are forced to make unpopular choices. Effective consultations should guide decisions.

  • Editorial |

    The papers we published in 2008 and 2009 received on average 29.9 citations each in 2010. However, nearly 30% of them were cited more than 30 times, contributing to roughly two-thirds of the impact factor.

  • Editorial |

    Citation analyses can condense scholarly output into numbers, but they do not live up to peer review in the evaluation of scientists. Online usage statistics and commenting could soon enable a more refined assessment of scientific impact.

  • Interview |

    Pavel Exner, the newly elected Vice President of the European Research Council and Scientific Director of the Doppler Institute for Mathematical Physics and Applied Mathematics in Prague, talked to Nature Materials about his role in the European funding institution, the value of peer review in identifying the best scientists, the rise of science metrics and the challenges of running an efficient evaluation system.

    • Christian Martin

  • Editorial |

    As the United States Congress confronts budgeting challenges, whether federal funding of scientific research is perceived as an investment or a discretionary expense will have long-term consequences.

  • Interview |

    The critical shortage of rare-earth elements is a concern for a number of important technologies, but also an opportunity to research alternative materials and technologies, says Alexander King, director of the US Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory.

    • Joerg Heber

  • Editorial |

    Would the publication of anonymous referee reports and editorial decision letters of published papers benefit the scientific debate? Results from a trial seem to suggest this.

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