A Small Expansion

2020 wasn't an easy year. All over the world, labs closed, people went home, and most of them still don't know when they'll be allowed back to work again. That uncertainty adds its own layer to what is already a difficult situation, and fewer in-person interactions threaten to erode our sense of community at a time when we need it most. But from the ashes of that chaos has come new hope – and new discoveries. The scientific community showed its great resilience, with researchers capitalizing on time away from the lab to take stock of their data, analyse their results, and produce a solid body of research works. Some truly excellent review papers have also been produced, such as these examinations of inorganic halide perovskite quantum dots for PEC applications by Junhui Liang et al. and the use of MOFs for biomedical applications by Jie Yang and Ying-Wei Yang. Scientists worldwide also showed their eagerness to embrace digital solutions, collaborating online through video conferencing platforms and flocking to virtual symposia for events that many may not have been able to attend under normal circumstances, had travel been required. Small is proud to have hosted three large-scale virtual symposia last year. In May, our colleague Jing Zhu organised five speakers to address an audience of over 4000 people: Prof. Lei Jiang (Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, CAS), Prof. Bin Liu (NUS), Prof. Xiaodong Chen (NUS), Prof. Zhiyong Tang (National Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology), and Prof. Hua Zhang (City University of Hong Kong). Our other two virtual events were topical: the first one in October focused on healthcare research, moderated by Ulrike Kauscher Pinto with guest speakers Luisa De Cola (Université de Strasbourg), Pol Besenius (Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz), and Brigitte Städler (Aarhus University); the second event in November focused on energy research, moderated by Joseph Krumpfer with guest speakers Xinliang Feng (TU Dresden), Deli Wang (Huazhong University of Science & Technology), and Annamaria Petrozza (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia). These symposia connected many early career researchers with very high-profile speakers and provided a much-needed update to the community on the swiftly evolving landscape of scientific publishing. In addition, as this editorial goes to press, our colleague Jovia Jiang is co-organizing the 2020 Suzhou Nanomaterials Summit. Together with the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics (SINANO, CAS), fourteen invited speakers and over 100 researchers and students will come to celebrate Small's 15th anniversary. The world-wide migration of our editorial staff to home office saw us all facing the same challenges that our colleagues in China had already begun to master, and which by now will be familiar to most if not all of you: balancing the sudden clash between work and home life, trouble-shooting a variety of technical issues from a distance, and establishing new and better ways to work together as a team. In spite of these challenges, the development of the Small brand has gained momentum! Our team was strengthened by new colleagues—Liying (Lynn) Wang in Beijing, China; Deborah Walker in Medford, USA; Joseph Krumpfer, Aron Urbatsch, and Plamena Dogandzhiyski in Weinheim, Germany—and we welcomed two new members of the Small family into the world: Small Science and Small Structures. With an identical scope to Small, Small Science now offers a fully open access option for your top quality nanoscience and nanotechnology papers. Small Structures aims to be the home of studies examining sub-macroscopic structures across various dimensions and multiple disciplines; in short, anything within that size regime with the keyword ‘structure'. Wiley's greater materials science portfolio has also expanded further into open access territory, now offering fully open access options for researchers in energy and sustainability, photonics, and nano-biomedicine. We wish to extend our gratitude to all of our editorial board members, our authors, our reviewers and our readers for the time and effort they put into the collaborative project that is a scientific publication. May you all stay healthy and safe, and we look forward to working with you all again in the coming year.