Reflections on Seven Years as Editor-in-Chief for Minerals

I was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X) on June 1, 2016, by Dr. Franck Vazquez, then chief executive officer of MDPI, and Fan Wang, then Managing Editor of Minerals. Now, some seven (and-one-half) years later, I am stepping down to take on other opportunities. Prof. Dr. Leonid Dubrovinsky from the Bayreuth University, Bayreuth, Germany, will become the new Editor-in-Chief of Minerals, and I wish him much success.

Minerals was launched at the end of 2011. I replaced Prof. Dr. Stephen E. Haggerty from Florida International University, Miami, USA, who had served admirably as Editor-in-Chief during the preceding three years, establishing a solid foundation for the new journal. As Minerals prepared for its sixth volume, it had published 196 peer-reviewed articles. There were two Associate Editors and thirty-nine Editorial Board Members to handle manuscript submissions and reviews. According to Journal Citation Reports (JCR), published by Thomson Reuters in June 2016, the Impact Factor of Minerals was 1.500, and the 5-Year Impact Factor was 1.320. Compared to the previous year, the Impact Factor had increased by 47 percent, attesting to Prof. Haggerty’s efforts. Minerals ranked 14/29 (Q2) in the category ‘Mineralogy’ and 9/21 (Q2) in the category ‘Mining & Mineral Processing’ at that time.

During my tenure as Editor-in-Chief, we decided to grow the journal by expanding its scope to include more diverse applications of mineral studies than are traditionally covered by other journals with a focus on mineralogy and/or mineral processing. Like some other journals in the MDPI portfolio, we established a structure of multiple, sub-discipline sections, each with its own Section Editor-in-Chief, to organize and develop the expanded scope. In June 2018, we created five sections led by respective Editors-in-Chiefs —Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Section (Prof. Dr. Hanumantha Rao Kota and, later, Prof. Dr. William Skinner), Mineral Deposits Section (Prof. Dr. Raymond M. Coveney, Jr and, later, Prof. Dr. Theodore J. Bornhorst), Environmental Mineralogy and Biogeochemistry Section (Prof. Dr. Karen Hudson-Edwards and, later, Dr. Anna H. Kaksonen), Mineral Geochemistry and Geochronology Section (Prof. Dr. Nigel J. Cook), and Crystallography and Physical Chemistry of Minerals & Nanominerals Section (Prof. Dr. Huifang Xu). At the end of 2021, three new sections were established to highlight the additional emerging sub-disciplines of the journal: Mineral Exploration Methods and Applications Section (Prof. Dr. Michael S. Zhdanov), Bimineralization and Biominerals Section (Dr. Yannicke Dauphin), and Clays and Engineered Mineral Materials Section (Dr. Andrey G. Kalinichev).

The expectation was that the expanded scope of Minerals would lead to cross-fertilization of ideas presented in the different sections and potentially provide a more vibrant and attractive publication platform. The Impact Factor and other journal statistics appear to demonstrate this. JCR gave Minerals an Impact Factor of 2.5 for 2022 and a 5-Year Impact Factor of 2.7. The journal remains ranked in Q2 in the categories of ‘Mineralogy’ and ‘Mining & Mineral Processing’ but is now also indexed in the category ‘Geochemistry and Geophysics’, where it also ranks in Q2. More than 7500 peer-reviewed articles have now been published during the journal’s lifetime. The journal has more than 400 Editorial Board Members, more than 270 Reviewer Board Members, and almost 200 Topical Advisory Panel Members. Annual awards are given to deserving candidates, including the Best Paper, Best PhD Thesis, Young Investigator and Travel awards, after assessments are carried out by an advisory committee and the Editor-in-Chief.

I would like to thank everyone associated with Minerals who helped me fulfill my duties to the journal over the past seven (and-one-half) years, without which very little could have been accomplished. Journal operation and development, when carried out well, is truly a team activity. I would particularly like to thank the various Managing Editors of Minerals with whom I worked over the years: Fan Wang, Jingjing Yang, Heather Wu, Lucas Xiang, Luke Wu, and Nikola Burazer. I will always remember your efforts with much appreciation.