BrJAC 2023 – Growing and Building Bridges

In 2010, in the first BrJAC Editorial, Kubota emphasized: “We are launching BrJAC – Brazilian Journal of Analytical Chemistry to open a discussion about the real role of the Analytical Chemistry for the development of the country and bring the improvement of the life quality. BrJAC is an Analytical Chemistry journal whose goal is to debate, discuss, show trends, and needs with opinion editorials and interviews with renowned investigators, besides publishing scientific papers from the academic and industry, fulfilling the idealistic purpose of a group of people to achieve actual academic industrial integration towards innovation and technical-scientific development.”1 In this same issue I had the opportunity to write a Point of View and I stated: “The launching of Brazilian Journal of Analytical Chemistry (BrJAC) is a milestone with full potential to expand the flow of knowledge. The integration of academy and industry is a must and BrJAC will certainly play a major role in putting them in contact.”2 After a relatively short span of time (just 13 years!), it is amazing to think about how much was accomplished. As announced since the beginning, each issue has a great combination of reviews, scientific articles, points of view, letters, sponsors’ reports, releases, news, and interviews. This list of contents is part of the identity of BrJAC and each section plays a special role. Of course, articles are the core of any scientific journal, but to create and consolidate bridges we need to integrate academia and industry, so different forms of communication are in the BrJAC fingerprint. And how could we move ahead without listening to well-known analytical chemists? Fortunately, since its beginning, BrJAC has opened its pages for interviews. We began in 2010 with Prof. Carol Hollingworth Collins (Institute of Chemistry, State University of Campinas)3 and travelled all the way to Dr. Joanna Szpunar (National Research Council of France, CNRS) in the last issue.4 I have no doubt that important landmarks of the history of analytical chemistry in Brazil were revealed in a colloquial atmosphere in these interviews. Recently, Marco Arruda, the Editor-in-Chief, posted a letter on the journal website entitled, “From dream to reality”5 and invited us to celebrate the indexation of BrJAC by Clarivate and its starting impact factor of 0.7. Certainly, the Brazilian community in analytical chemistry has a lot to celebrate and it is amazing to reach this point when we think about the challenges along the 13-year road (and please keep counting!). In his letter, Marco Arruda mentioned challenges related to logistics, economy, ethics, and scientific quality. Surely, these are critical aspects. We live in an increasingly complex society full of opportunities and challenges. I am not thinking about political turmoil, social inequalities, and climate crisis. You know how big these challenges are. However, I would like to mention two other major challenges that we have coped with (or we are coping with) during the lifetime of BrJAC. One critical moment was the years of the COVID-19 pandemic and how they affected our way of life. We are still trying to understand all that has happened and how we have changed. The economy was affected. Work routines were affected. Families and friends were affected. Institutions were affected. Once again, we have practiced important human values, such as solidarity, fraternity, and the shared goal to move ahead as a society. Once again, science has rescued us. Another major influence when thinking about complexity and the scientific literature comes from predatory journals. The routinization of research and its diffusion are landmarks for the evolution of science, technology, and innovation. Scientific journals are important foundations for dissemination of research. Notwithstanding, nowadays we are coping with paper mills that produce fake papers just for profit. Recently, we are starting to face the dangerous combination of paper mills and artificial intelligence to produce polluted science. Despite some clouds on the horizon, it is great to see how the BrJAC community was able to grow during these hard times. We have achievements to celebrate and BrJAC is a great one. Recently, The Analytical Scientist asked researchers about the biggest challenge facing the analytical chemistry field.6 I would like to highlight the comments expressed by Prof. Robert Graham Cooks: “A lack of appreciation of the intricacies of analytical science by other disciplines (especially chemists) who see it as little more than an exercise in measurement using commercial instrumentation. Like modern day pharaohs, the organic synthetic chemist commands – “measure it!” – without pausing to recognize the ingenuity that went into the slaves’ work of conceiving the method, building the instrumentation, and achieving useful performance criteria. The “measure it” request at the end of that multi-year process is often a simple application, but the process that allows it is a unique combination of new scientific insights and skillful technology.”. And Richard Zare: “Simply put, gaining more respect for analytical science’s importance to understanding nature.”. I do think BrJAC is part of the multifarious mechanism to bring better understanding and more respect to analytical sciences. Let us keep our focus and strength. As always, “time keeps flowing like a river” (Time, The Alan Parsons Project).