Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SICCAS) today signed an official agreement with Nature Publishing Group to launch the first Nature Partner Journal in China, npj Computational Materials.

　　The open access Nature Partner Journals (NPJ) publish high-quality research in collaboration with world-renowned international partners, and have adopted a modified set of Nature editorial standards. npj Computational Materials will be the first to focus on materials designed or discovered largely by computation and on integrated computational and experimental studies of materials. The journal will also publish developments on experimental tools and data that enable computational materials design and discovery.

　　Vice President Professor En-ge Wang, represented CAS at the signing ceremony held today in Shanghai.

　　“We are pleased and honoured to be the first Chinese partner of the Nature Partner Journal program. The agreement comes as an exciting new addition to other long-standing collaborations between Nature Publishing Group and CAS institutions. npj Computational Materials embodies our shared vision for publishing high quality open access journals to benefit the global science community,” Vice President Wang said.

　　Nick Campbell Executive Editor of Nature and Head of Nature Publishing Group for Greater China said: “The explosion in computational technology over the last few decades has enabled previously unimaginable approaches to the design of materials that have the potential to fast-track research into materials that can have a profound impact on the way we live. Now, high quality research in computationally designed materials has a dedicated open access journal to provide focus and leadership for the field. We’re pleased to announce the launch of npj Computational Materials with the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics today.”

　　The agreement was signed by Dr Lixin Song, Director of SICCAS and Charlotte Liu, Managing Director of Macmillan Science and Education in Greater China.

　　The Editor-in-Chief of the journal is Dr Long-Qing Chen, who is Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Engineering Science and Mechanics, and Mathematics at the Pennsylvania State University. He is also a recipient of the Materials Research Society 2014 Materials Theory Award for his pioneering work in computational materials science.

　　Dr Lidong Chen, a professor in materials science and Director of the State Key Laboratory of the partner institution SICCAS, is the Co-Editor-in-Chief. He has won People’s Republic of China (PRC) State Science and Technology Awards for his great contribution to the design and synthesis of high performance thermoelectric materials.

　　Editors of the journal include Dr. Sergei Kalinin, Distinguished Research Staff Member and Director of the Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials at the Oak Ridge National Lab; Dr. Gerhard Klimeck, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Reilly Director of the Center for Predictive Materials and Devices (c-PRIMED), and Director for NCN (Network for Computational Nanotechnology) at Purdue University; Dr. Sanat K Kumar, Professor and Head of Department of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University; Dr. J？rg Neugebauer, Professor and Department Head of Computational Materials Design, Max Planck Institute Duesseldorf; Dr. Ichiro Terasaki, Professor and Director of Laboratory of Condensed-Matter Physics of Functional Materials Nagoya University.

　　The journal will be open access, which means that all research will be freely available upon publication, and can be accessed by anyone, from scientists to engineers and start-ups. Aimed at world-class open access publishing, all journals under the NPJ program are committed to delivering high-quality, peer-reviewed original research as well as a timely peer review process and rigorous editorial standards.