National Science Review—A journal on Chinese and global scientific achievement

The National Science Review (NSR) proudly announces the publication of its inaugural issue. As China's first comprehensive science review journal published in English, NSR will link China's rapidly advancing scientific community with the frontiers of global science and technology for the benefit of the scientific community worldwide.

NSR is sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and has attracted broad support from Chinese scientists.

NSR's goals are to draw international attention to scientific research and achievements in China, provide an overview of progress in frontier sciences worldwide, and promote international exchange and collaboration. The journal will focus on six major natural science areas in China and across the world. While providing an overview of global science progress in these fields, NSR will also offer in-depth analysis of major scientific developments and science-related policy in China.

The journal will feature articles by leading scientists in addition to regular sections, including Perspectives, Research Highlights, and Letters & Commentaries. Each issue will offer reports highlighting a specific scientific field in which China has made notable progress. Each issue will also feature in-depth interviews with high-level science administrators and policy makers from China and abroad, and will include round-table discussions among prominent scientists about current—and sometimes controversial—science and policy issues.

NSR provides the Chinese scientific community with a much-needed channel to present its latest scientific achievements to the international community. With the Chinese government's increasing support for basic research, China's rapid progress in science and technology will accelerate, offering great potential for globally significant breakthroughs. In depth coverage of this progress will be published in our journal.

Chinese scientists have made significant accomplishments in the recent past. In physical sciences, major advances have included contributions to verification of the Higgs boson particle by ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the experimental realization of the quantized anomalous Hall effect in magnetic topological insulators, discovery of high temperature superconductivity in iron-based materials, and neutrino oscillation experiment from Daya Bay, China.

In chemical sciences, important advances have been made in molecular reaction dynamics, nanochemistry and nanocatalysis, functional molecular solids, organic synthesis, chemical biology, and rare earth chemistry and its applications.

In life sciences, researchers have made breakthroughs in the genetic and structural basis of cellular functions, stem cell research and regenerative medicine, the neural basis of cognition and behavior, disease pathogenesis and diagnosis, biodiversity and conservation, and genetic manipulation and breeding of high-yield crop plants.

In environmental and earth sciences, accomplishments include delineating the geological and paleoenvironmental history of the Tibetan Plateau, as well as understanding the destruction of the North China Craton, the evolution of early life and major vertebrate groups, the origin of the East Asian monsoon, and the evolution of the South China Sea.

In the field of materials sciences, major advances have taken place in the field of novel nanomaterials. For example, the two-dimensional material graphene has shown great promise in flexible electronics, high-frequency transistors and supercapacitor applications. In addition, ZnO and GaN nanostructures have been employed in highly sensitive UV sensors and high-efficiency LEDs due to the materials’ piezo-phototronic effect. Furthermore, new metal chalcogenides with enhanced photon-harvesting and carrier transfer capacity are being used to make efficient all-solid-state solar cells.

In information and engineering sciences, remarkable progress has been made in quantum information, supercomputing, satellite navigation, manned space flight and manned deep submergence.

With the boom in Chinese science, we are certain that researchers in China will continue to make achievements of this caliber, which NSR will subsequently explore in depth. Reviewing advances in these diverse areas of the natural sciences in a single journal will help foster interdisciplinary awareness and cross-fertilization. The adoption of global free-access publication will also help promote the journal to as broad an audience as possible.

NSR's editorial board comprises a large group of leading researchers who will contribute to NSR's work in their respective areas. With continuing support from Chinese scientists and international colleagues, we look forward to producing a world-class journal with global impact.

Chunli Bai, Editor-in-Chief

Mu-ming Poo, Executive Associate Editor

Qikun Xue, Associate Editor

Song Gao, Associate Editor

Yigong Shi, Associate Editor

Zhonghe Zhou, Associate Editor

Max Lu, Associate Editor

Lei Guo, Associate Editor