As fields within the sciences continue to grow their communities and evolve with each new discovery, so too must the scholarly publications those fields call their home. With that in mind, Structural Dynamics — a Gold Open Access publication dedicated to representing the depth and breadth of its field for the betterment of science and humanity — is proud to announce it will be expanding its scope.
Co-published by AIP Publishing and the ACA (The Structural Science Society) and entering its tenth year in publication, Structural Dynamics will now, in short, welcome articles based on structure or dynamics rather than just structure and dynamics. That’s a thoroughly abbreviated way to state a much larger change — a complete look at the new scope of Structural Dynamics can be found here.
“When Structural Dynamics first launched, our vision was to have a journal fully dedicated to time-dependent structure determination,” wrote Editor-in-Chief, Professor George N. Phillips, Jr., in an editorial. “However, as science continues to progress, we want Structural Dynamics to evolve to further support the global community of researchers that is dedicated to advancing and promoting structural science in a more general way.”
The changes, according to Phillips’s editorial, will allow the journal to more comprehensively cover experimental and theoretical methods and techniques exploring both characterization and dynamics for a wide range of compounds, including macromolecules, organic and inorganic small molecules, organometallic complexes, and bulk or layered materials. X-ray and electron diffraction and scattering, coherent diffractive imaging, X-ray and photoelectron spectroscopies, and artificial intelligence are all welcome topics — and with this expansion in scope, Structural Dynamics will also be welcoming neutron scattering techniques, electron and cryoelectron microscopy, small and wide-angle X-ray scattering, nuclear MRI, chirality sensitive spectroscopes, and surface-specific nonlinear optical techniques.
The expansion in scope also marks an important step in the relationship between Structural Dynamics and the , Phillips noted.
“One of my goals since becoming Editor-in-Chief has been to strengthen the relationship between Structural Dynamics and The Structural Science Society (ACA),” he wrote. “We hope these changes will better serve the wide range of research represented by the ACA and that ACA members will find a home for their research within Structural Dynamics.”
The deep importance of community building and serving as stewards for the field was echoed by ACA President, Professor Cora Lind-Kovacs.
“I remember vividly when the journal was launched and how exciting it was to hear there was now an ACA journal — but the scope did not quite cover my research area,” said Lind-Kovacs. “It is wonderful to have a journal that will be ‘home’ for the entire ACA membership.”
Another important change Structural Dynamics hopes will better serve the research community: the development of thoughtful, topical collections of curated articles. Collected and published asynchronously, these bundles should prove useful to readers looking to take deep dives into specific subject areas. Structural Dynamics also welcomes readers to submit their own ideas for future special topic collections.
“We’re delighted Structural Dynamics is evolving to better serve its field, the research community, and ACA members,” said Penelope Lewis, Chief Publishing Officer at AIP Publishing. “Structural Dynamics has always been a pioneering journal, and we are excited to see it and its editorial direction continue to evolve alongside the research community it serves.”
ABOUT STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS
Structural Dynamics focuses on recent developments in experimental and theoretical methods and techniques that explore electronic and geometric structure as well as the changes of chemical, biological, and condensed-matter systems over time. The community of scientists and engineers working on either structure or dynamics may work across diverse systems, but often share similar instrumentation and methods. Hence, the journal seeks to create connections across a variety of fields of study and also to support communications between these cultures. Structural Dynamics (SDY) is co-published by AIP Publishing and the ACA (The Structural Science Society), and it publishes articles from a global community of researchers that advance and promote crystallography and structural science.