Deepening Our Roots and Growing Wings.

The coronavirus pandemic caused unprecedented challenges in 2020 on a global scale. Despite the scientific community’s extraordinary efforts to develop effective vaccines to combat the virus at breakneck speed, its threat persists into 2021, with the battle to contain its spread ongoing, the emergence of new viral variants, and the logistical challenge of vaccinating a global population. Nonetheless, the pandemic has put science firmly in the spotlight, and chemists remain at the forefront in the fight to understand and defeat the disease. The pandemic also provided one of the best examples of the power and necessity of immediate “open access” to research results and the importance of international collaboration in science. We thank our global community of researchers for their noble efforts in this endeavor and for providing more than a glimmer of hope as we move into 2021. Chemistry will remain a central force in managing this pandemic and the myriad of other unresolved and pressing problems facing humanity and our environment. We commit that ACS Omega will continue to welcome and publish high-quality, peer-reviewed research in pure and applied chemistry, as well as its interfacing areas of science around these grand challenges, that is accessible for all to read.

Despite the difficulties of 2020, ACS Omega had another splendid year. The journal continued to publish more great content, and all key metrics grew appreciably. Our editorial teams expanded and diversified. New features such as Virtual Issues were introduced, and there were significant changes for the journal to respond to evolving trends in publishing and policy. We touch upon all of these themes in this Editorial. As ever, we are grateful to our community of authors, reviewers, and readers and thank them for their roles in embracing ACS Omega’s mission and consolidating the foundations upon which our journal was built five years ago. We hope to continue to welcome new communities of researchers to our fold and strive to become the preferred and trusted open-access journal in chemistry and allied disciplines in our domain.

ACS Omega Is “Plan S” Compliant

The much-discussed and debated, predominantly Europe-centric open-access mandate, Plan S (https://www.coalition-s.org/) came into effect in 2021 for some participating funding bodies (https://www.coalition-s.org/plan-s-funders-implementation/). ACS Omega immediately responded to ensure that mandated authors can continue to publish in our open-access journal. We are pleased to announce that in January 2021 ACS Omega aligned itself to Plan S’s requirements by allowing articles to be published under a CC-BY license and for authors to retain the copyright of their work. Authors may now choose from a default CC-BY-NC-ND license or an upgrade to CC-BY, at no additional cost. This update in licensing information for ACS Omega is reflected in the Directory of Open Access Journals (https://doaj.org/), the data source for the Plan S Compliance Validator, the Journal Checker Tool (https://journalcheckertool.org/), which has confirmed ACS Omega’s compliance. We hope that authors funded by members of the cOAlition S group will continue to submit their research to our journal in the comfort and safety of the knowledge that ACS Omega meets Plan S requirements.

Changes to Article Publication Charge and Country Discount Structure

In July 2020, the Article Publication Charge (APC) for ACS Omega increased from $750 to $1,250. The number of countries benefiting from discounts or full waivers also grew from 78 to 87 countries (depicted in Figure ; https://acsopenscience.org/country-discounts/) in line with the World Bank classification of lower middle-income economies. We are pleased that the journal has not encountered a slow down in submissions due to these APC changes. Also, we welcome ACS’s recent engagement in setting up Read & Publish agreements with hundreds of institutions worldwide (https://acsopenscience.org/read-publish-agreements/), which take away the responsibility for the direct cost of the APC from the authors and will allow them to publish open access, without impacting their own research budgets.

Figure 1

APC country discounts at ACS Omega. Countries colored blue have a fully sponsored/waived APC; an APC of $250 applies for countries colored cyan.

We encourage you to find more information on the new ACS Open Science Web site (https://acsopenscience.org/).

Associate Editor and Editorial Advisory Board Expansion

We also expanded our Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) with a focus on increasing the geographic distribution, gender, and topical diversity of our broad-scope journal. We are proud that we now have equal gender representation, and our 100-strong EAB of exceptional reputation spans 31 countries worldwide (Figure ).

Figure 2

Geographic distribution of ACS Omega’s Editorial Advisory Board.

Virtual Issues in 2020

In last year’s annual Editorial,[1] we stated our intention to create online collections of previously published research in areas of current scientific or societal interest. In line with this, we published three themed collections as Virtual Issues in 2020 (Figure ), which were very well received by our readership and contributors alike. In March, our inaugural Virtual Issue, “Women at the Forefront of Chemistry”, featured some of the fine examples of high-quality work published in our journal by women researchers in all areas of chemistry from around the world. This Virtual Issue was guest-edited by our Associate Editor, Professor Luisa Torsi, and the collection was prefaced by her Editorial, “Let Us Together Shine a Light on Women in STEM”. We are grateful for her contributions to this Virtual Issue, which we hope will serve as a reminder of the importance of gender equality and encourage more women to pursue a career in STEM subjects. In July, ACS Omega celebrated its fifth anniversary, and we marked the occasion by releasing our “Celebrating 5 Years of Open Access with ACS Omega” Virtual Issue. Selected by our team of editors, this issue featured 50 outstanding Articles, Mini-Reviews, and Perspectives to demonstrate the geographical and topical diversity and the quality of work published in the journal since its launch in 2016. September saw the publication of our final Virtual Issue of 2020, “Chemistry in Africa: Open & Global”, which showcased a topically diverse collection of high-quality work published in the journal by researchers based in Africa, a region often under-represented in scientific publications. This Virtual Issue in ACS Omega was the first for any ACS Publications journal to recognize and celebrate African contributions to science. We were honored that a guest Editorial, “Quality Research in Africa and Why It Is Important”, cowritten by Elizabeth Marincola and Thomas Kariuki, renowned advocates for Open Science and research in Africa, fronted this special collection. We are pleased that all of these Virtual Issues received positive reactions. We are already planning more exciting Virtual Issues in 2021.

Figure 3

Artwork for the three Virtual Issues published by ACS Omega in 2020: Women at the Forefront of Chemistry (Left); Celebrating 5 Years of Open Access with ACS Omega (Center); and Chemistry in Africa: Open & Global (Right).

Authorship, Reviewer, and Readership Highlights and Statistics

In 2020, ACS Omega published 3,530 articles from researchers based in 82 different countries across all regions (Figure ). Our authorship expanded significantly worldwide, and authorship remained strong from China, Japan, South Korea, Europe, India, and the USA. We note growing contributions from authors based in South America, Africa, and the Middle East, demonstrating our journal’s truly global appeal. We congratulate and thank our authors for entrusting their work to our hands. Again, as in 2019 with published articles from M. Stanley Whittingham, ACS Omega counted among its authorship articles from Nobel Prize winners in 2020: Ben L. Feringa (doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.0c02094) and Robert H. Grubbs (doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.0c03840).

Figure 4

ACS Omega’s global authorship by region.

We saw substantial growth in our reviewer pool in 2020. A total of 10,980 unique reviewers from 107 countries returned reviews, an increase of 25.8% compared with 2019.[1] We thank all of our reviewers (Supporting Information Table S1), including those who have reviewed more than once, for their assistance in allowing us to make well-reasoned, carefully considered editorial decisions. We highlight some of our eminent prolific reviewers in 2020 with deep gratitude (Supporting Information Table S2).

One of the best indicators of a journal’s influence is the number and diversity of its readership. We are thrilled to see that downloads of published articles at ACS Omega passed 4.1 million in 2020, a >72% increase over 2019 (Figure , left).[1]ACS Omega attracts a diverse readership across the globe, as depicted in Figure (right). In 2020, 66% of our readership profile comprised nonsubscribers, versus 34% ACS institutional subscribers. A selection of highly read articles (>5,000 views) is presented in Table .

Figure 5

Shown on the left is the year-wise annual usage growth of published content in ACS Omega. The right-hand image highlights the geographic distribution of readership in 2020.

Table 1

Selection of Highly Accessed Articles Published in 2020

Title	Author List (*corresponding author)	Citation
Intelligent Mobile Electronic Nose System Comprising a Hybrid Polymer-Functionalized Quartz Crystal Microbalance Sensor Array	Trisna Julian, Shidiq Nur Hidayat, Aditya Rianjanu, Agus Budi Dharmawan, Hutomo Suryo Wasisto*, and Kuwat Triyana*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (45), 29492–29503
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.0c04433
New Phenalenone Derivatives: Synthesis and Evaluation of Their Singlet Oxygen Quantum Yield	Jérémy Godard, Frédérique Brégier, Philippe Arnoux, Bauyrzhan Myrzakhmetov, Yves Champavier, Céline Frochot, and Vincent Sol*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (43), 28264–28272
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.0c04172
Synthesis and Characterization of 5-MeO-DMT Succinate for Clinical Use	Alexander M. Sherwood*, Romain Claveau, Rafael Lancelotta, Kristi W. Kaylo, and Kelsey Lenoch	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (49), 32067–32075
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.0c05099
Oxygen Is the High-Energy Molecule Powering Complex Multicellular Life: Fundamental Corrections to Traditional Bioenergetics	Klaus Schmidt-Rohr*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (5), 2221–2233
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03352
Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Antibody Drug Conjugates Based on an Antibody Expression System: Conamax	Zhala Tawfiq, Nicky C. Caiazza, Spiros Kambourakis, Yutaka Matsuda, Benjamin Griffin, J. Casey Lippmeier, and Brian A. Mendelsohn*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (13), 7193–7200
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03628

In 2020, ACS Omega published 86 Mini-Reviews and 6 Perspectives on a range of topics. The Mini-Review is still a relatively new manuscript type for our journal, and we are delighted to see the enthusiasm with which it has been received by authors and readers alike. We have published some outstanding Mini-Reviews, a small selection of which is presented in Table . The three articles selected for ACS Editors’ Choice in 2020, which include a Mini-Review, are shown in Table .

Table 2

Selection of Highly Accessed Mini-Reviews Published in 2020

Title	Author List (*corresponding author)	Citation
Contribution of Organofluorine Compounds to Pharmaceuticals	Munenori Inoue*, Yuji Sumii, and Norio Shibata*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (19), 10633–10640
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.0c00830
Machine Learning in Catalysis, From Proposal to Practicing	Wenhong Yang, Timothy Tizhe Fidelis, Wen-Hua Sun*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (1), 83–88
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03673
Constructing Mechanochemical Durable and Self-healing Superhydrophobic Surfaces	Chengjiao Zhang, Fanghua Liang, Wei Zhang, Hui Liu, Mingzheng Ge* Yanyan Zhang, Jiamu Dai, Hailou Wang, Guichuan Xing, Yuekun Lai*, Yuxin Tang*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (2), 986–994
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03912
Empowering Clinical Diagnostics with Mass Spectrometry	Shibdas Banerjee*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (5), 2041–2048
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03764
Recent Advances in Noble Metal (Pt, Ru, and Ir)-Based Electrocatalysts for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction	Changqing Li and Jong-Beom Baek*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (1), 31–40
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03550
Hofmeister Series: Insights of Ion Specificity from Amphiphilic Assembly and Interface Property	Beibei Kang, Huicheng Tang, Zengdian Zhao, and Shasha Song*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (12), 6229–6239
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.0c00237
Recent Advances in Covalent Organic Frameworks for Molecule-Based Two-Dimensional Materials	Soyoung Kim and Hee Cheul Choi*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (2), 948–958
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03549
Nanocarriers as Potential Drug Delivery Candidates for Overcoming the Blood–Brain Barrier: Challenges and Possibilities	Jyoti Ahlawat, Mahesh Narayan*, et al.	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (22), 12583–12595
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.0c01592
Review on the Ugi Multicomponent Reaction Mechanism and the Use of Fluorescent Derivatives as Functional Chromophores	Rafael O. Rocha, Marcelo O. Rodrigues, Brenno A. D. Neto*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (2), 972–979
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03684

Table 3

ACS Omega Articles in 2020 Selected as ACS Editors’ Choice

Title	Author List (*corresponding author)	Citation
Regeneration of Selective Catalyst Reduction Catalysts Deactivated by Pb, As, and Alkali Metals	Jingxin Li, Pan Zhang, Lan Chen, Yajuan Zhang, and Liqiang Qi*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (23), 13886–13893
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.0c01283
Organelle-Partitioned Sugar–Rhodamine Diad for In Vivo Tumor Imaging	Enkang Zhang, Chaozhang Yu, Hui Tang, Yuntong Li, Dongliang Zuo, Rongshui Yang, Chao Ma, Jiayin Miao*, Pingguo Liu*, and Xinhui Su*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (30), 19014–19019
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.0c02323
Recent Advances in Fluorescent Probes for Detection of HOCl and HNO	Anila Hoskere Ashoka, Firoj Ali, Rajeshwari Tiwari, Rina Kumari, Sumit Kumar Pramanik*, and Amitava Das*	ACS Omega 2020, 5 (4), 1730–1742
		DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03420

Finally, we showcase a selection of articles that received wider public attention online on social and news media as reflected by their high Altmetric scores (Table ).

Table 4

Selection of High Altmetric Score Articles Published in ACS Omega in 2020

In closing, we thank our research community for their enormous contributions throughout what was another excellent year for the journal across the board. Since its launch, ACS Omega has firmly established itself as a high-quality, open-access journal for the chemical sciences and interfacing areas. Submissions, published output, and article downloads continue to grow appreciably. The diversity of authors, editors, reviewers, and readers is another measure of the journal’s global reach, engagement, and influence. More than ever, we remain committed to supporting and enhancing diversity at all levels.[2] Several published articles have been featured in the news or attracted much attention online. We are pleased that ACS Omega has retained and continues to grow a large pool of loyal authors and reviewers. Despite not being able to connect with our community in person over 2020, our team provided up to 40 sponsorships that included awards and poster prizes for researchers at various events and virtual conferences worldwide. We hope that the pandemic will ease over 2021, and we can engage with you directly soon. Until then, we trust our community will stay safe and remain actively involved with the journal.