As of January 2022 Prof. Eva Hevia, University of Bern, and Prof. Jérôme Waser, EPFL Lausanne, took over the roles as Editors in Chief of Helvetica. The Swiss Chemical Society is proud and happy to announce this news and wishes them both all the best and much satisfaction in their new positions. As an important partner, Helvetica supports the SCS formally and financially and we kindly ask and motivate all our members and colleagues to publish their scientific articles in Helvetica. It's for the benefit of the SCS and the Swiss science community.
After the Helvetica relaunch in 2016, Prof. Christophe Copéret and Prof. Jeff Bode, both ETH Zurich, served as Helvetica editors for six years and established Helvetica as a Swiss based, high-quality journal. Thanks, Christophe and Jeff, for having done an excellent job!
«Helvetica: A new beginning»
Editorial by Eva Hevia and Jérôme Waser, https://doi.org/10.1002/hlca.202100244
December 23, 2021
«With the beginning of the New Year, we are both equally excited and honored to take on our new roles as Editors-in-Chief of Helvetica Chimica Acta. We do it full of enthusiasm, humility and motivation, aiming to continue the sterling work that our predecessors Christophe Copéret and Jeffrey Bode from ETH Zürich have carried out during the past six years.
We are extremely thankful to the Swiss Chemical Society (SCS) for choosing us as the next team of Editors-in-Chief for its flagship journal. Since 1917, Helvetica has been one of the main pillars of the SCS. It publishes top scientific results from Switzerland and abroad and is recognized for its very high quality standards. Founded over 120 years ago the SCS continues to actively support our community, providing unique scientific forums for networking and scientific exchange, and recognizing research excellence through its awards. Helvetica sponsors many of these important activities, including the SCS Lectureship Tours, as well as the organization of conferences and workshops and several early career researcher awards. It is worth to remind ourselves that every engagement with Helvetica(that is being an author, reviewer, guest editor, or advisory board member, etc.) also represents an important contribution towards supporting the SCS in its dedicated work.
As mentioned above we are particularly indebted to Christophe and Jeffrey who have implemented key innovations, paving the future of a modernized version of Helvetica. Key features of Helvetica include the rapid processing of its manuscripts, which undergo a robust but fair peer-review process within just three weeks from submission to first decision, transfer options from other Wiley journals, publication of original research as well as Reviews and Perspective articles in all areas of chemical science and further engagement with the wider community providing social media coverage. Helvetica also offers full freedom to its authors concerning the length of their manuscript. It should also be noted that by complying with the open-access mandate for research funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the European Research Council, Helvetica is one of the few chemistry journals offering a short embargo period of six months for Green Open Access and it also offers Gold Open Access to all Swiss and German authors as part of a broader agreement with Wiley(CSAL, DEAL).
Building on recent successes, and looking towards the future, we are thrilled to continue reshaping Helvetica, increasing its visibility, diversity and inclusivity across the whole landscape of chemical science. We hope that our distinct and complementary backgrounds and expertise will expedite progress towards these targets. Aiming to reach an even wider global readership, the main criteria for publication will, as ever, be high quality research, which has been rigorously conducted in an accurate and objective manner, advancing the chosen field of study. We encourage submissions from authors at every stage of their career and look forward to continuing to attract contributions from international leading authors. We are also delighted to work closely with our International Advisory and Editorial Board members and would like in the future to further engage younger scientists by the creation of an Early Career Advisory Board. By sharing a similar vision to ours, the boards will assist us on setting up the next steps on Helvetica's strategic roadmap in its primary role of continuing offering strong support to the community in advancing fundamental and applied knowledge in chemical sciences.
Wishing you all the best for 2022
Eva and Jérôme»
David Spichiger, SCS
14.01.2022