Welcome to 2025

Abstract

As I look forward to 2025, which marks the publication of Analytical Chemistry’s 97th volume, I find myself also reflecting on some recent successes. I am in my 19th year with Analytical Chemistry─14 as the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) and five as an Associate Editor (AE)─and the one constant over this period has been growth. The number of manuscript submissions has more than doubled since I become EIC, with an 18% increase in 2024 alone! To give a little historical perspective to how much we have grown, in 1930, 1960, and 1990, we published 420, 2400, and 4000 pages, respectively. In 2020, we published more than 16,000 pages and 2024 is the first year to ever exceed 20,000 pages! Analytical Chemistry has played an important role in helping us keep up with our field over the last century─and in three years, we will be celebrating our 100th anniversary! But that is a topic for a future editorial (and some fun celebrations). Not only has the journal experienced continued growth, the demographics of our corresponding authors have shifted. In 2011, 46% of our publications were from the Western Hemisphere, 28% from Europe, and 26% from Asia. In 2024, Asia accounted for more than two-thirds of our manuscript’s corresponding authors. In keeping with our increase in manuscript submissions, we have further expanded our editorial team. Jürgen Popp from Friedrich Schiller University (Germany) became an AE in 2024, and in January 2025 we welcome two new AEs from China, Lihua Zhang, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and Xiaobing Zhang, Hunan University. I expect one more AE to join us during 2025 so that we reach our full complement of talented editors to handle the breadth and number of submissions. I am also pleased to say that the measurement science brand at ACS Publications continues to thrive. In 2023, the new journal Chemical & Biomedical Imaging was started; this is a partnership between the ACS and Nanjing University. In 2024, ACS Electrochemistry was launched, with its first full issue published in January 2025. Congratulations to its new Editor-in-Chief Patrick Unwin, and here is to the journal’s successful first year! Besides publishing research articles advancing chemical measurement science, Analytical Chemistry partners with other ACS measurement science journals to award the Advances in Measurement Science Lectureships. In addition, Analytical Chemistry and ACS Measurement Science Au sponsor the Early Career Investigator Award in Analytical Chemistry. Let me congratulate our 2024 winners, Jeffrey Dick (Early Career Award), and Boris Mizaikoff, Juyoung Yoon, and Peter Nemes (ACS Measurement Science Lectureship Awards). While 2025 nominations have closed, stay tuned for the 2025 Winners to be announced in the near future! As part of a collaborative effort, we published a special issue in 2024 to mark the 50th anniversary of the first published surface-enhanced Raman scattering experiments. Entitled Celebrating 50 Years of Surface Enhanced Spectroscopy, the issue includes a number of exciting articles from Analytical Chemistry, as well as the Journal of Physical Chemistry and ACS Omega. In addition, Benjamin Garcia curated an outstanding manuscript collection, Recognizing Hispanic and Latinx Analytical Scientists. If you have not looked it over, you should. Stay tuned as we have several exciting collections planned for 2025. Finally, as many of you know, we started our Diversity & Inclusion Cover Art Series in 2021, and in 2023 it was expanded to ACS Publications portfolio wide and continued through 2024. You can read about the series and see the full collection of covers! This remains one of the most original and exciting initiatives we have undertaken since I became EIC. Our successes are because of the support of our authors, reviewers, editors, and ACS staff, who all work together to create Analytical Chemistry. I wish everyone a safe, healthy, and productive 2025. This article has not yet been cited by other publications.