1. Submission
Thank you for your kind interest in Interdisciplinary Materials. Submissions must consist of content that has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except those as the brief abstracts in the proceedings of conferences or symposiums.
The submission system will prompt you to use an ORCID ID (a unique author identifier) to help distinguish your work from that of other researchers as well as develop your personal profile on a worldwide platform.
All submissions will be handled and processed using the ScholarOne online submission system.
A cover letter should be uploaded in the ‘Cover Letter Field’ of the ScholarOne system. The text can be entered directly into the field or uploaded as a file.
The cover letter must contain:
In addition, authors should clearly state the motivation behind and the novelty of their research in the cover letter. Authors should also clarify key results and the advances made compared with their previous work.
Once you have prepared your submission in accordance with the Guidelines, manuscripts should be submitted online at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/intermat.
Microsoft Word templates:
Interdisciplinary Materials is an open-access, peer-reviewed, and rapid-publication journal focusing on the interdisciplinary researches between materials science and other disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, mechanics, biology, energy, environment, information, engineering, etc. The journal aims at reporting cutting-edge developments across science and technology around the world.
Interdisciplinary Materials is expected to take an interdisciplinary, frontier, and integrated approach to all areas of materials research while cultivating the exchange of ideas between scientists involved in the different disciplines. Readership will include physicists, chemists, mathematicians, mechanicians, biologists, and energy, environment, materials scientists, engineers from academia and industry as well as policymakers.
Interdisciplinary Materials invites you to submit high-quality, innovative full-length research articles, rapid communications, reviews, perspectives, comments, and other editorial content of general interest to the field of interdisciplinary materials.
All papers will be published online as soon as they are accepted and will be fully citable. In addition, there are no article publication charges for the first three publication years.
(1) Research Article
Description: The reports of original studies within the journal scope of Interdisciplinary Materials.
Word Limit: No strict word limits, however, it is better to be within 5,000 words including abstract but excluding references, tables, and figures.
Abstract: Within 260 words, briefly describe the contents of the research article.
References: No word limits, but the American Medical Association (AMA) system of referencing should be used (see AMA Manual of Style for details).
Figures/tables: No number limits, but 10 figures should be sufficient. The tables and figures should be submitted together with the main text of the article, and they should be properly prepared and numbered as described here.
Keywords: Please provide 3-6 keywords to highlight the main involving subjects of the article.
(2) Short Communication
Description: The report of new findings that will substantially and immediately affect the field of materials science and information technology. It is a brief version of the original article, but the new findings need to be significant and they need to be highlighted explicitly in this type of article.
Word Limit: Within 1,500 words including abstract but excluding references, tables, and figures.
Abstract: Not required.
References: 35 maximum. The American Medical Association (AMA) system of referencing should be used (see AMA Manual of Style for details).
Figures/tables: 4 maximum.
Keywords: Please provide 3-6 keywords to highlight the main involving subjects of the article.
*Notes on Supporting Information: It is mandatory for this type of article. The detailed methods and important experimental or computational data to support the original findings need to be addressed in Supporting Information.
(3)Review
Description: Reviews are comprehensive analyses of a specific topic. They can be submitted either by the invitations from the Editors or by the authors themselves; Both types will undergo the peer-review process prior to acceptance.
Word Limit: No strict word limits, however, it is better to be within 8,000 words including abstract but excluding references, tables, and figures.
Abstract: Within 260 words, briefly describe the contents of the review article.
References: No word limits. but the American Medical Association (AMA) system of referencing should be used (see AMA Manual of Style for details)
Figures/tables: Minimum 1 table/figure in the review article. The tables and figures should be submitted together with the main text of the article, and they should be properly prepared and numbered as described here.
Keywords: Please provide 3-6 keywords to highlight the main involving subjects of the article.
Biography: Please provide the first (or co-first) and corresponding authors' biographies. The biographies should include photographs, which are 600 dpi at minimum, and 40 mm broad, 50 mm high. It is recommended to keep the biography list as short as possible.
(4) Perspective Articles
Description: Perspectives are a forum for authors to discuss ideas from a personal viewpoint. They are more forward-looking and /or speculative than Reviews. Perspectives can be submitted either by the invitations from the Editors or by the authors themselves; Both types will undergo the peer-review process prior to acceptance.
Word Limit: No strict word limits, however, it is better to be within 8,000 words including abstract but excluding references, tables, and figures.
Abstract: Within 260 words, briefly describe the contents of the review article.
References: No word limits. but the American Medical Association (AMA) system of referencing should be used (see AMA Manual of Style for details)
Figures/tables: Minimum 1 table/figure in the review article. The tables and figures should be submitted together with the main text of the article, and they should be properly prepared and numbered as described here.
Keywords: Please provide 3-6 keywords to highlight the main involving subjects of the article.
Biography: Please provide the first (or co-first) and corresponding authors' biographies. The biographies should include photographs, which are 600 dpi at minimum, and 40 mm broad, 50 mm high. It is recommended to keep the biography list as short as possible.
(5) Editorial [only invited by Editors]
Description: It is written by Editorial Board members, invited authors, or editors.
Word Limit: 1,000 words maximum.
Abstract: Not required.
Figures/tables: Maximum 2 figure/tables. The figure/tables should be submitted together with the main text of the article, and they should be properly prepared and numbered as described here.
References: Maximum 5 references. The American Medical Association (AMA) system of referencing should be used (see AMA Manual of Style for details).
Keywords: Not required.
(6) Comment and Response
Description: Comment must offer perspective to content published in Interdisciplinary Materials. A Comment must reference the source, and a Response to a Comment must reference the Comment in the first few paragraphs. Comment can use an arbitrary title, but a Response must cite the title of the Comment: e.g. Response to [title of Comment]. This ensures that readers can track the line of discussion.
Word limit: 500 words maximum.
Abstract: Not required.
References: 5 maximum.
Figure/tables: 1 maximum.
Keywords: Not required.
Parts of the Manuscript
The submitted file should be presented in the following order: 1. title, abstract, and keywords 2. main text 3. references 4. tables (each table complete with title and footnotes) 5. figure legends 6. supporting information (if relevant). Supporting information should be supplied as separate files.
Title page
The title page should contain:
The present address of any author, if different from that where the work was carried out, should be supplied in a footnote.
Authorship
Please refer to the journal’s authorship policy the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section for details on eligibility for author listing.
Acknowledgments
Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Financial and material support should also be mentioned. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.
Conflict of Interest Statement
You will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement during the submission process. See the section ‘Conflict of Interest’ in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section for details on what to include in this section. Please ensure you liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement.
Abstract
Please provide an abstract of no more than 260 words containing the major keywords. The abstract should adhere to the word count specifications under the section Manuscript Categories and Requirements. It should state the main problem, methods, results, and conclusions. It must be factual and comprehensive. The use of abbreviations and acronyms should be limited and general statements (e.g. ‘‘the significance of the results is discussed’’) should be avoided.
Keywords
Please provide 3-6 keywords that are most relevant to your content.
Main Text
Authors should use the subheadings required for the Article Type as specified in the section 'Manuscript Types'. Original Article manuscripts should be structured using the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgment, Disclosure, References, and when relevant, Supporting Information.
References
The American Medical Association (AMA) system of referencing should be used see the - AMA Manual of Style for details. All references should be numbered consecutively in the order of appearance and should be as complete as possible. In-text citations should cite references in consecutive order using Arabic superscript numerals. Sample references follow:
In-Text examples:
Diabetes mellitus is associated with a high risk of foot ulcers.1-3
Several interventions have been successful at increasing compliance.11,14-16
The data of Smith et al18 is further evidence of this effect.
As reported previously,1,3-6
The results were as follows4:
Journal article (1-6 authors):
Journal article with more than six authors:
Journal article with no named author or group name:
Online articles not yet published in an issue:
Book:
Book chapter:
Electronic book:
Internet document:
Please note that journal title abbreviations should conform to the practices of Chemical Abstracts.
Tables
Tables should be self-contained and complement, but not duplicate, the information contained in the text. They should be supplied as editable files, not pasted as images. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend, and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings.
Figure Legends
Figure legends should be concise but comprehensive - the figure and its legend must have high readability. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement.
Preparing Figures
Although we encourage authors to send us the highest-quality figures possible, for peer-review purposes we are happy to accept a wide variety of formats, sizes, and resolutions.
Click here for the basic figure requirements for figures submitted with manuscripts for initial peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements.
Color figures: Figures submitted in color may be reproduced in color online free of charge. Please note, however, that it is preferable that line figures (e.g. graphs and charts) are supplied in black and white so that they are legible if printed by a reader in black and white.
Graphic in the Table of Contents (TOC): A graphic must be included for display in the table of contents (TOC) and the abstract. Graphic should capture the reader’s attention and give readers a quick visual impression of the essence of the manuscript without providing specific results. Please label the graphic as “For Table of Contents Only” and upload it separately at the first submission stage.
Supporting Information
Supporting information is information that is not essential to the article but that provides greater depth and background. It is generally hosted online and appears without editing or typesetting. It may include tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc. Click here for Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information.
Note, if data, scripts or other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper are available via a publicly available data repository, authors should include a reference to the location of the material within their paper.
Wiley Author Resources
Wiley has a range of resources for authors preparing manuscripts for submission available here. In particular, authors may benefit from referring to Wiley’s best practice tips on Writing for Search Engine Optimization.
Article Preparation Support
Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.
Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript.Animal Experimentation
For detailed reporting of animal experimentation, the ARRIVE guidelines should be followed. Manuscripts containing experiments using animals must include a statement in the Experimental Section to state that permission was obtained from the relevant national or local authorities. The institutional committees that have approved the experiments must be identified and the accreditation number of the laboratory or of the investigator must be given where applicable. If no such rules or permission are stipulated in the particular country where the research/experiments were carried out, this must be mentioned in the manuscript. Compliance with US Public Health Service’s Policy on Animal Research Advisory Committee Guidelines is strongly recommended.
Human Studies/Subjects and Clinical Samples
For manuscripts containing experiments with human subjects (including the testing of sensor/wearable technologies) or tissue samples from human subjects, a statement regarding appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB)/Ethical Committee approval must be included. The informed consent of all participating subjects must be obtained, and a statement to indicate this must be included. Confirmation that the study conforms to recognized standards, such as the Declaration of Helsinki, is also required.
When reporting phase II and III clinical trials, reporting on tumor marker studies, or describing human biospecimens, authors should refer, respectively, to the relevant CONSORT statement, REMARK, or BRISQ guidelines. Prospective clinical trials must be registered in www.clinicaltrials.gov (or a similar public repository that matches the criteria established by ICMJE) prior to the start of patient enrollment. Trial registration numbers must be reported in the article.
Image Processing
Images submitted for publication must accurately represent the original data, and authors must provide, if requested by the editors, unprocessed and raw data to aid in the reviewing process. Images submitted should be minimally modified, and any modification to original raw data should be clearly and fully disclosed, either in the figure legends, the Experimental Section, or in the Supporting Information. This should include the software used and the settings and methods applied in manipulations.
Processing should be applied equally to the entire image and also to controls. Processing that obscures data or emphasizes certain regions at the expense of others should not be used. When used, false-color and nonlinear adjustments, such as gamma correction, deconvolution, filtering, thresholding, and projection, should be clearly indicated in the manuscript.
In the case of gels and blots, cropped images may be used when necessary for clarity and conciseness. These modifications must be clearly mentioned, and the full gels and blots should be provided as Supporting Information. A clear line should mark the boundary between different gels where these were cropped, and all important bands should be maintained in the image.
Statistical Analysis
Reported data should be representative and reproducible. For original research articles, a sub-section entitled "Statistical Analysis" should be included at the end of the Experimental Section that fully describes the following:
All relevant figure and table legends should contain information on sample size/number of replicates (n), probability (P) value, the specific statistical test for each experiment, data presentation, and the meaning of the significance symbol.
A more detailed checklist can be found here: The Road to Better Presentation of Data: The Do’s and Don’ts
Data Sharing and Data Availability
Interdisciplinary Materials encourages authors to share the data and other artefacts supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors may provide a data availability statement, including a link to the repository they have used, in order that this statement can be published in their paper. Shared data should be cited. All accepted manuscripts may elect to publish a data availability statement to confirm the presence or absence of shared data. If you have shared data, this statement will describe how the data can be accessed, and include a persistent identifier (e.g., a DOI for the data, or an accession number) from the repository where you shared the data. You may use the Standard Templates for Author Use to select an appropriate data availability statement for your dataset. or draft your own.
Nucleotide sequence data can be submitted in electronic form to any of the three major collaborative databases: DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ), EMBL Nucleotide Archive, or GenBank. It is only necessary to submit to one database as data are exchanged between DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank on a daily basis.
Proteins sequence data should be submitted to either of the following repositories: Protein Information Resource (PIR) or SWISS-PROT.
For manuscripts describing structural data, atomic coordinates and the associated experimental data should be deposited in the appropriate databank (see below). Data in databanks must be released, at the latest, upon publication of the article. Please ensure that atomic coordinates and experimental data are released on time.
For more information, check Wiley’s Data Sharing Policies and our Frequently Asked Questions page.
Data Citation
Please review Wiley’s Data Citation policy.
Editorial Peer-review and Acceptance
The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are single-blind peer-reviewed. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.
Wiley's policy on confidentiality of the review process is available here.
Manuscripts are assigned sequentially to Deputy Editors. A Deputy Editor solicits reviewers (typically, two external reviews are sought). The reviewers’ evaluations and Deputy Editor’s comments are compiled by the Editor-in-Chief for disposition and transmittal to the authors.
The Deputy Editors will advise authors whether a manuscript is accepted, should be revised, or is rejected. Minor revisions are expected to be returned better within two weeks of decision; major revisions better within four weeks. Manuscripts not revised within the time periods of three months are subject to withdrawal from consideration for publication unless the authors can provide extenuating circumstances.
A number of manuscripts will have to be rejected on the grounds of priority and available space. A manuscript may be returned to the authors without outside review if the Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editors find it inappropriate for publication in the Journal. Similarly, the Editors may expedite the review process for manuscripts felt to be of high priority in order to reach a rapid decision. Such ‘fast-track decisions’ will normally occur within one week of receipt of the manuscript.
Even though the final decisions are made, authors may dispute a decision and can document good reasons why a manuscript should be reconsidered. A rebuttal process exists. In the first place, authors should write rebuttal letters to the Editor-in-Chief.
In-house submissions-Papers authored by Editors or Editorial Board members of the title will be sent to Editors unaffiliated with the author or institution and monitored carefully to ensure there is no peer-review bias.
Conflict of Interest
The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include but are not limited to, patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.
Funding
Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://support.crossref.org/hc/en-us/articles/214360886-The-Open-Funder-Registry
Authorship
The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:
Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Prior to submitting the article, all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript.
Additional authorship options
Joint first or senior authorship: In the case of joint first authorship a footnote should be added to the author listing, e.g. ‘X and Y should be considered joint first author’ or ‘X and Y should be considered joint senior author.’
ORCID
As part of our commitment to supporting authors at every step of the publishing process, Interdisciplinary Materials encourages the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. This takes around 2 minutes to complete. Find more information.
Publication Ethics
The journal is committed to high standards for professional conduct and ethical behavior in all published material. The Publication Ethics Guidelines detail the journal's position as a scientific publisher.
This journal follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and handles cases of research and publication misconduct accordingly (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices). Note this journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley’s Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors here. Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines can be found here.
All articles published by Interdisciplinary Materials are fully open access where they are immediately freely available to read, download and share. To cover the cost of publishing, Interdisciplinary Materials charges a publication fee when a submission is accepted for publication. There is no fee for initial submission for editorial/peer-review evaluation. Accepted papers will be published under CC BY - Creative Commons Attribution License. With the Creative Commons license, the author retains copyright, and the public is allowed to reuse the content. The author grants Wiley a license to publish the article and to identify as the original publisher. All authors will be directed to the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY) in accordance with funder mandates effective on 1 April 2013.
If your paper is accepted, the author identified as the formal corresponding author will receive an email prompting them to login into Author Services; where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be able to complete the license agreement on behalf of all authors on the paper.
To learn more about Creative Commons Licenses and to preview the terms and conditions of the agreements, please click here. Note that certain funders mandate that a particular type of CC license has to be used; to check this, please click here.
Open Access fees: Agreement to pay the APC is given at manuscript submission but will only be charged upon acceptance. For more information about this journal's APC's, please visit the Open Access Page.
Please note: Article Publication Charges (APCs) are currently waived.
Accepted Article Received in Production
Please kindly note that substantial changes to the manuscript after acceptance may require a re-evaluation by peer reviewers. If you have any questions or updates after your manuscript’s acceptance, please contact the editorial office at your earliest convenience.
When your accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, you (corresponding author) will receive an email asking you to log in or register with Author Services. You will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.
Proofs
Once your paper is typeset you will receive an email notification of the URL from where to download a PDF typeset page proof, associated forms, and full instructions on how to correct and return the file.
Please note that you are responsible for all statements made in your work, including changes made during the editorial process and thus you must check your proofs carefully. Note that proofs should be returned as soon as possible from receipt of the first proof.
Early View
The journal offers rapid publication via Wiley’s Early View service. Early View (Online Version of Record) articles are published on Wiley Online Library before inclusion in an issue. Note there may be a delay after corrections are received before your article appears online, as Editors also need to review proofs. Once your article is published on Early View no further changes to your article are possible. Your Early View article is fully citable and carries an online publication date and DOI for citations.
Author Name Change
In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, porce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request.
Additional Guidelines for Cover Pictures, Visual Abstracts, Frontispieces, and Table of Contents Graphics
All necessary copyright permission for the reproduction of the graphical elements used in visuals must be obtained prior to publication.
Graphics that do not adhere to these guidelines will be recommended for revision or will not be accepted for publication.
Access and Sharing
Please review Wiley’s guidelines on sharing your research here. The submitted version of the manuscript, the accepted version, and the published version (Version of Record) can all be deposited on an institutional or another repository of the author's choice without embargo.
When the article is published online:
Now is the time to start promoting your article. Find out how to do that here
Article Promotion Support
Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves.
Interdisciplinary Materials Editorial Office
Email: im@whut.edu.cn
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology (WHUT)
122 Luoshi Street, Wuhan 430070, China