I’m pleased but not surprised that our journal has become highly cited. We have worked hard to maintain high-quality manuscripts in the journal, improving the publication times, and developing the content to cover important areas. The field of macrocyclic chemistry and inclusion phenomena in general has burgeoned over a number of years. Those of us in the field have often wondered if at some point research in this area will taper off, as is fairly common among research topics after a while. However, the huge variety of compounds involved in this field has continued to engender interest and innovation.

I think the increased citation rate reflects the continued expansion of interest in selective intermolecular phenomena which lie at the heart of the papers that we publish. The field of supramolecular chemistry, of which this is a part, involves a wide variety of applications, including separations, drug delivery, and selective complexation, and is now expanding into the area of nanotechnology. The latter is of course now a very popular research topic. Furthermore, we cater to a largely international readership, so we receive manuscripts from around the world.

Over the last few years, we have tried to improve our journal in several ways. Specifically, a few years ago we recognized the increasing importance of macrocyclic chemistry in our general area, so we added the term "and Macrocyclic Chemistry" to the title. More recently, we have begun inviting short reviews from highly respected scientists to highlight their work. We have changed the format of the journal to a larger page size and gone to electronic publication, submission, and review. I think all these steps have helped.

The journal has been linked over the years to a few key international symposia. For example, I am the chair of the International Organizing Committee of the International Symposium on Macrocyclic Chemistry. On a few occasions, the organizers have published special issues of symposium proceedings. In addition, international symposia on cyclodextrins and calixarenes have done likewise. Beyond this, in recent years we have significantly improved our time to publication and the regularity of publication, which has made the journal more attractive for manuscript submission.

Innovative research labs continue to generate novel macrocyclic and other host structures which have the potential for applications in a variety of fields ranging from drug delivery and analytical chemistry to molecular computing. These include cyclodextrins, crown ethers, cryptands, lariat ethers, podands, cyclophanes, torands, coronands, cavitands, resorcainarenes, cucubiturils, etc.

We are one of the primary journals in which research concerning cyclodextrins is published. Indeed, we are the only journal dedicated primarily to the publication of work in the area of macrocyclic hosts, which covers a very broad range of compounds.

It’s wonderful that this field continues to burgeon. In the past, a large percentage of our papers have been in the area of host synthesis and characterization. As the field continues to mature, however, I believe we will see a greater emphasis on the application of these highly selective and novel structures to interesting separations, molecular recognition, and nanotechnology applications.

Of course we are the premier journal dedicated specifically to host-guest chemistry. Beyond this, our journal satisfies an important niche in the scientific community. The premier journals like JACS and Science carry work with a broad appeal of the best laboratories. But I think we all recognize that underlying the big breakthroughs in science is a host of researchers working in laboratories around the world to provide the foundation upon which great leaps forward can be achieved. Our journal provides a venue for this army of hard-working, but often unsung, researchers to publish their work, share their discoveries, and receive the recognition they need and deserve. We continue to strive to ensure that we get the best papers, and, for the right areas, we can compete with the best of the more general journals.