Small: Growing Bigger than Ever

Issue 1, 2024 marks the beginning of the 20th volume of Small. Pleasingly over this period the journal has become “bigger” in stature and has proven itself to be an essential home for experimental and theoretical studies of fundamental and applied interdisciplinary research at the nano- and microscale. The mix of peer-reviewed Research Articles, Reviews and Perspectives providing great coverage of the field has proven particularly popular with researchers. The importance of Small, and the other members of the Small family, namely, Small Methods, Small Structures, and Small Science, to the community is clearly illustrated by the substantial growth both in terms of submissions as well as published papers during the course of 2023. There have been increases across all the fields covered by Small from Biomedical Engineering and Diagnosis & Therapy, through Photonics, Interface Science, Electronic Devices, and Engineering to most notably those of Energy Generation & Conversion, Energy Storage, and Catalysis. The number of quality submissions received has also improved during the last year. The Editorial team at Small is working closely with those at Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Science, and Angewandte Chemie to offer authors opportunities to publish their top more specialized work at the nano- and microscale within the Small family of journals. As part of a wider ranging reorganization of the Wiley Research Publishing group, Emily Hu, Jovia Jiang, and Ulf Scheffler, the former Editors-in-Chief at Small Methods, Small Structures, and Small Science have all taken on new leadership responsibilities within the company. On behalf of all the respective editorial teams, I would like to thank them for their dedication and creativity during the establishment of the journals. The new Editor-in-Chief of Small Methods is Xi Wen, the new Editor-in-Chief of Small Structures is Mary De Vita, and the new Editor-in-Chief of Small Science is Ekaterina (Kate) Perets; see their respective Editorials outlining their plans for the journals going forward. All three will also serve as Deputy Editors at Small, enhancing the family ties across the group. Lisa Smith continues her long association with Small as Deputy Editor and is joined in this role by Rohini Kitture based in India and April Rodd based in the USA. The Small team is further supported by Valentina Lombardo who has an overarching Nanotechnology Cluster Deputy Editor role across the portfolio. To aid the assessment of the broad spectrum of content received across the Small family an extensive team of dedicated subject matter expert editors from the Comprehensive Editorial Evaluation Team is in place to help ensure timely and fair decisions on the growing number of submissions. During 2023, the Small family of journals featured a number of Special Issues on a variety of topics (see Table 1). I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Guest Editors for their commitment to develop these ideas for their respective communities and for making them so successful. Watch out for more coverage of key fields in the coming year. It was certainly nice for members of the editorial team to get out again in the community, to attend conferences, and to talk directly with many authors and readers about their work. Over the course of 2023, these connections with the researchers in the nano- and microscale community contributed to Small publishing more than 2500 Research Articles and Reviews. The members of the Small team would like to thank all the authors, reviewers, Board members, and readers for their continuing trust and support. We are looking forward to publishing more of the key breakthroughs in the field in 2024. Dr. Neville Compton Editor-in-Chief