Professor Duncan Graham becomes editor in chief of Chemical Society Reviews

We have a fantastic portfolio of journals within the Royal Society of Chemistry. Many of our longer serving journals have a traditional subdiscipline focus, such as Analyst or Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry. 

We have new journals that we've launched, and a lot of those are interfacial, so they're covering the boundaries between chemistry and materials or chemistry and biology, so we're looking at that interfacial side of things, but holding all of that together is the journal Chemical Society Reviews. 

That comes together and provides the forum for the whole community to provide a review of a particular area, whether it is a single subdiscipline or whether it's an interfacial area between chemistry and other emerging subdisciplines – it could be materials, it could be physics, it could be other areas that are emerging and of importance – but it provides that unique forum for critical insight and typically it's more recent publications that we're looking at here, so really giving a current topical critical review of an area that's of interest to the chemical community. 

Now, alongside that, we also have tutorial reviews – they're reviews which are designed as entry-level reviews into a specific topic within the chemistry field. 

Again, we're aiming at two very distinct different classes of reviews, one which is a critical appraisal of an area within chemistry, and another which is an introductory level review into that specific topic within chemistry.

I have been involved with the RSC for a long time. I started with RSC Publishing with Analyst and then occupied a number of roles within the community, but also within publishing. I then had a brief break of about six months and then went through the process to be appointed as Editor in Chief of Chemical Society Reviews and it was a really good time for me to take on this role. 

After six months, I would say the Hotel California comes to mind: 'you can check out, but you can never leave', and I was itching to get back involved with the Royal Society of Chemistry, and particularly with publishing, so when this opportunity came along, I jumped to the chance because I'm a real enthusiastic supporter of ChemSocRev. 

I have contributed articles, I've guest-edited, I've been on the advisory board for many years. We use review articles from the journal for many of our papers ourselves for gaining insight into different topics and areas, and also for bringing an introductory set of materials to new students into different parts of chemistry, so it's a really important journal from that perspective. 

From a personal perspective for the future, we know this is one of the highlights of the chemistry community globally. It's a long-standing, high-impact, highly regarded journal publishing high-quality reviews, and we want to maintain and grow that reputation. 

We want to be known as an influential journal within the chemistry community, articulating future directions, using key opinion leaders to set out those directions and give critical appraisals, but also to jump on new trends and to champion where areas are going to be important for addressing societal challenges, such as energy challenges, climate change, sustainability. All of these topics are hugely important, and ChemSocRev can be of huge impact and benefit to humankind and society at large.