Annalen der Physik – Wiley's Physics Forum and Center of Excellence

The introductory Editorial in the January issue is always a perfect opportunity to recap the last year, report on the progress of the journal, and announce future plans. Fortunately, after more than two years of the Covid pandemic, we have been able to meet several of our Germany-based scientific Advisory Board members again in person, among them Matthias Bartelmann (University of Heidelberg), Tommaso Calarco (Research Center Jülich), Ignacio Cirac (MPI for Quantum Optics Munich), Cornelia Denz (University of Münster and now the new PTB President), and honorary Advisor Ulrich Eckern (Augsburg University). This reassured us of the strong support from the scientific community locally and, looking at rising submissions and article quantities (+30% in 2022), reviewer reports, special issues etc., even more internationally. Almost half of the articles published in Annalen der Physik (AdP) have now contributors from China. Consequently, we also collaborate with Advisory Board members from several reputable Chinese institutions: Qihuang Gong (Peking University), Lin Gu (Institute of Physics, CAS), Hong-Bo Sun (Jilin University), Dingyu Xing (Nanjing University), Peng Xue (Beijing Computational Science Research Center), Pu Yu (Tsinghua University) – to be further expanded. In terms of authors of published articles, China is followed by Germany, the USA, Russia, France, India, Switzerland (these are based on the primary location of the contributor) and 45 other countries, making AdP a truly international endeavor. We are very glad to see the global outreach of this journal that once started as the first physics publication in Germany more than two centuries ago. We often describe AdP laconically as “one of the leading general physics journals”, but what does this actually mean? As Tables 1 and 2, respectively with the most accessed and most cited recent articles, prominently demonstrate, first and foremost this means a huge spectrum of physics subfields being represented in the journal. In these few examples, topics spread from thermodynamics and nuclear physics over quantum science, photonics, and condensed matter/materials to sociophysics; this broad range is truly amazing. Excluding our steadily demanded backfile collection (many great Einstein works, of course, but also Born/Oppenheimer, Fick, Förster, Mie, Planck, Schrödinger etc.), the 6 listed current highlight articles were on average requested more than 30 times per day last year. Expanding Nuclear Physics Horizons with the Gamma Factory [Review] Part of Special Issue: Physics Opportunities with the Gamma Factory, eds. Dmitry Budker, Mikhail Gorchtein, Mieczyslaw Witold Krasny, Adriana Plffy, Andrey Surzhykov Another remarkable fact in Table 1 is that all 6 most accessed articles from 2022 were published open access (OA) with a CC-BY license – further clear proof that the online visibility of our content, especially OA, is very high. The transition to OA continues to be an important driver for the publication of research results. For authors, there are various benefits, such as more downloads, more citations, and better attention to their articles in scientific news and social media. Wiley has several agreements with funders and institutions to help authors publish OA and cover article publication charges. Authors who receive funding from an agency or institution with a Wiley Open Access Account do not pay directly. The charge is paid by the institution or funder. Authors whose institutions have paid the Wiley Open Access partner fee are eligible for a discount on the publication charge, and on acceptance a discounted fee is payable by the author. If you are not sure about your institution or funding agency open access policy, you may find out more with Wiley's Author Compliance Tool. The percentage of OA articles is steadily increasing, not least through our numerous transformational agreements (TAs) around the world. TAs allow researchers unlimited read access to our portfolio of journals, plus funding to cover article publication charges. Hot off the press at the writing of this editorial, Wiley and Projekt DEAL have extended their open access agreement in Germany, which was one of the first of its kind, into the fifth year. Many more similar announcements for various regions can be expected to appear on Wiley Author Services this year. We invite you to check if you are eligible for this kind of support at your current affiliation. To answer a question that is still being raised by authors, AdP and Wiley also wholeheartedly support green OA, i.e., preprint posting or so-called self-archiving of submitted and accepted manuscripts in repositories such as arXiv and ResearchGate. Here, it is crucial that authors always keep the journal reference and DOI updated. Notwithstanding this, AdP continues to run on a hybrid basis so that authors can choose the license for their articles. Traditional subscription-based publication is also possible and free of charge to the authors. This part of the journal content continues to be available to subscribed readers, now including TA participants. In view of their increasing coverage combined with the widespread, long-term establishment of AdP as a quality-service physics journal, excellent visibility is guaranteed. We much appreciate this licensing configuration since it enables us to reach the broadest audience possible – both as contributors and as readers. We take this opportunity to renew our worldwide call for papers to every researcher in physics. Please send your work, and do not hesitate to contact us with ideas for topical special issues. For the latter, a short list of recently published and a few upcoming projects is given in Table 3. Such valued collaborations between staff and guest editors, the latter being well established in their specific communities, are peer-reviewed under the same standards as regular submissions and provide excellent insight into certain emerging or core topics of physics research. Wiley is a signatory of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) supporting a variety of metrics that measure levels of impact beyond citations, including usage, re-use, reproducibility, peer review assessment, geographic reach, and public recognition through references in the media. This enhances responsible research assessment practices and supports Wiley's mission around open practices and transparency. Related to that, we also remain focused on publication speed and quality as important aspects of scholarly communication. AdP has been able to maintain median handling times of 11 days from submission to the first editorial decision, and a median peer-review time of 48 days from submission to acceptance that often involves the thorough assessment of theoretical concepts and results by our valued reviewers. Consequently, an average acceptance rate of about 30% is the best evidence of the quality and the level of excellence that we strive for in AdP. This has also resulted in a stable and even slightly further increased Impact Factor, which is now 3.047 (Clarivate Analytics, 2022). Last but not least, coming back to the history of physics, we should certainly not miss mentioning our Then & Now free-to-read article series. It has developed strongly under the new editorship of Arianna Borrelli and Tilman Sauer, with 8 new Perspective articles published in 2022. Among these are very interesting contributions on the 100th anniversary of Einstein's Nobel Prize, Rudolph Clausius, who passed away 200 years ago, and the famous Einstein–Besso manuscript. Speaking of history, please keep in mind that Annalen der Physik continues to quickly move towards its 225th anniversary of continuous publication, which we are going to celebrate in 2024. On the way to this fabulous jubilee, we sincerely thank all our authors, Advisory Board members, reviewers, and readers for their exceptional contributions, work, and advice. We continue to count on your support in 2023 and the years to come. Stefan Hildebrandt, Editor-in-Chief on behalf of the editorial team Adrian Adomeit-Gadd,* James Cook, Fucsia Crea,* Anja Habermann, Matthew Lock, Nadezda Panarina, Huan Wang (*new members since 2022)